A viral Facebook post showing a Tennessee museum’s display that included multiple letters to Santa, some with Christmas wishes for “slaves,” drew numerous outraged reactions online.
The post included a video initially published to Snapchat that showed three letters that were hung up for public display at Discovery Park of America in Union City, Tennessee.
Two of the letters, which appeared to be written in children’s handwriting, communicated the same message: “I want a slave for Christmas.”
The third letter was an activity sheet with the typed prompt, “For Christmas, I would love…” to which someone wrote “a slave” as a response.
Hundreds of people shared the post and left comments, expressing disgust at the letters. Some people surmised that the same person wrote the letters. Others speculated that whoever wrote the letters intended to express their wishes for a “sleigh” and not a “slave.” Several people didn’t buy that line of thinking.
“This can’t even be claimed as a mistake,” one person commented. Sleigh and slave are two different things, and they spelled it right every time. They knew exactly what they meant,” another person added.
“I see no mistake here. They didn’t put no name purposely. They knew exactly what they were doing … if you teach your kids racism…teach the consequences as well…” someone else wrote.
One person commented that he and his wife visited the museum and removed the letters, calling them “childish BS.”
“This is Awful that something like this was put up especially for a child to have a mind frame so young like this, wow,” another person wrote.
Discovery Park of America left a comment under the post after it began gaining traction on Facebook explaining that the Santa letters they provide child visitors are supposed to be filled out and left in their “North Pole” mailbox.
“We appreciate the guest who removed these inappropriate items that someone had hung over our traditional Hallmark Christmas card display. We are taking steps to prevent this from happening again,” the museum wrote in a Facebook comment.
Officials also released a statement on the museum’s official Facebook page about the incident:
As many of you know, we have a “letters to Santa” station as part of our Christmas celebration. From time to time, a guest will write something inappropriate on a letter. That happened tonight, and a guest saw it and let us know. Any inappropriate letters are removed and destroyed as soon as we see them. We apologize for any offense this may have caused.
The museum also stated that the only items that are supposed to be hung up for display where the letters were hung are vintage Hallmark Christmas cards.
Many people have called on museum officials to check the facility’s security footage to catch the perpetrator(s) in the act.
The museum told WREG that the camera stationed over the area where the letters were found wasn’t positioned in such a way to capture the “heinous act.” Officials said they’re looking into other ways to investigate.
This incident comes just weeks after thousands of racist texts were sent to Black people across the country telling them they’ve been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.” The texts were sent the day after Donald Trump’s re-election to the White House, prompting an FBI investigation and drawing criticism from state and federal officials.
