flotus spreads some holiday cheer

[IrishAyes]

7. In response to his little girl's asking about white Santas, a friend of mine used to tell her,

"Don't worry, Santa's really black. He's just passing."

That's a phrase I've borrowed a few times myself to shut up particularly virulent racist diatribes in my presence: "How do you know I'm not passing?" Guaranteed to stop 'em in their tracks, because it's an unfamiliar challenge and they don't know quite what's about to happen, though they're pretty sure they might not enjoy it. People who don't know me yet take one look and make all sorts of erroneous assumptions; the racists think they've got carte blanche.

God bless them, more and more of the younger generation are just plain puzzled over the hangups of ours.