The MSNBC host said that, in her mixed race family, it was important to share with children depictions of figures they can aspire to emulate which remind them of themselves.

“If we cannot imagine you as racially different from ourselves, it’s because our minds are stunted by a history that still can’t fathom benevolence, and kindness, and intimacy in the bodies of those who are not like us,” Harris-Perry asserted. “If we still doubt that you can embody every possibility of racial being, it is because we do not yet believe that every racial body is capable of making our sugar plum dreams come true.”

“If we can’t imagine Santa across the racial divide, no wonder we have trouble creating an america without a racial divide,” she concluded.