GIVEN THE CHOICE, I THINK I'D TAKE THE SEASICK CROCODILE.

It's the Festive Season, which means time for assorted malcontents to air their grievances.  You can count on sources like Huffington Post to provide a forum.  "The world is thwarting my efforts to create a space for my daughter where people of color are front and center."  What's her gripe?

Last year, at age 4, my daughter was indignant when we brought out the brown Santa we’d had since her first Christmas.

“Santa is white,” she insisted, amazed at our ignorance and our refusal to acknowledge such a clear truth.

“Why do you think Santa is white?” I asked.

“Because he is,” she answered. For weeks, she pointed out examples of white Santas, from the movie “The Polar Express” to the local sit-on-Santa’s-lap events. “See?” she’d say petulantly. “I told you Santa is white.”

My wife and I are devoted to surrounding our daughter with positive images of brown and Black people. My wife is a sociologist, and I’m a onetime literary historian. She’s Black and Jewish, and I’m Puerto Rican and Irish. Our daughter is Native American and African American. Professionally and personally, we know something about race in the U.S., and have read extensively about the best way to help our kid deal with racism.

If that's the best this power couple can come up with, that kid is in for a rough time. Santa Claus has plenty of helpers, and here's one who deserves a shout-out.

By day, Titus Hopper earns respect as a school principal. But on weekends during the holiday season, he transforms into someone much more magical.

With his bright red robes and a gleaming gold title belt, Hopper has, for the last two years, turned himself into Hop, the Black Santa Claus. He wants to share a ho-ho-ho and a Merry Christmas with as many young people as he can this time of year."There is a diversity in how people like to celebrate Christmas. But no matter how you celebrate, everybody believes in happiness and smiles, and happiness and smiles are what is needed this year," said Hopper, principal of fifth- and sixth-graders at Shelby Intermediate School.

Hopper began playing Hop in 2019. Well before the Christmas season, he and his wife Michelle attended a photoshoot aimed at raising awareness for child loss and infertility. While at the shoot, Hopper said photographer Charmeika Bias saw his bushy white beard and asked him if he'd like to be Santa.

Good. Does anybody know the complexion of Bishop Nicholas of Myra, anyway?  But somebody has to write the annual sermon to the woke about those evil department stores.

Still, American cultural institutions are slowly defeating us. Despite recent corporate pledges to the idea that Black lives matter, simple changes like better representation of diversity on store shelves haven’t happened.

More than 65 years after the Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Board of Education made the “doll test” famous, I still can’t walk into a superstore and find BIPOC really represented in toys.

My daughter’s instance on Santa’s whiteness is disturbing for what it represents: that the world is thwarting my efforts to create a space for my daughter where people of color are front and center. Our culture continues to insist that BIPOC are secondary ― and, all too often, completely invisible.

It’s not just Santa. When we go to the store to buy a Chelsea doll, we can only find the white, blonde version. The Polly Pocket toys on the shelf come with the two white characters included; their Black friend Shani is available only in a jungle-themed house. Shopping is painful year-round, but especially during the holiday season.

How sad it is to be that adoptive toddler, she's getting termites in her soul from her two mommies.  Maybe she'll figure out how to type "Black Santa" into a search engine.