I'm not a big fan of token gestures that conspire to obscure our attention from all the entrenched inequities -- the over-feeding of homeless people on Thanksgiving, for example, or TV-network-funded home makeovers.
I try to train my students to see through this kind of feel-good fraud and recognize the difference between slick charity and exquisite justice. So when I was approached one December afternoon, by two aids from a daycare next to my high school and asked to be their Santa Claus, I nearly uttered the words "opiate of the masses.But the desperation on their faces halted me. They said they had a room full of anxious children and that their scheduled St. Nick, someone's brother-in-law, was a no-show.
Read More: Waiting for Santa Claus
