Local News in Brief : Mall Picketed Over Black Santa’s Ouster
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About 30 members of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored people picketed the Carson Mall on Wednesday to protest replacement of a black Santa Claus with a white one in a Christmas program for children.
Marketing director Connie Wilson was suspended, mall officials said, while they investigated her handling of last Friday’s incident in which Rodney Newton, who was supposed to pop out of a box during the program, was replaced on the grounds that he was too large for the box.
Donna Grundy, who works for a promotion firm that provides Santas to the mall, said Newton was to remain in the show and pass out gifts. But, she said, Wilson told her, “You should have checked with mall management, because there is no black Santa.”
Mark McGaughey, one of the mall owners, apologized to NAACP members, insisting that it was all a misunderstanding. He said a technician suggested that it would “break the continuity” to have a black Santa passing out gifts after a white Santa leaped from the box.
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