When my dad was a kid, he lived in Sierra Leone for a year. My grandfather was a college professor, and he had gotten an offer to teach at a school there, so the whole family moved to Africa. Because his family was white and (relative to the native Africans) wealthy, they lived on top of a hill, with the other white families, while the native Africans lived at the bottom of the hill. That Christmas, my grandfather took the family to see Santa. Now this wasn't America, and there weren't any shopping malls, so they went to the local grocery store, which had a Santa that people (probably mostly white people) could visit. Outside of the store were dirt-poor Africans, begging to the white patrons. Inside the store was Santa Claus. This Santa was not an elderly white man with an appropriate beard; instead it was a black man, in a Santa costume, wearing a plastic Santa mask. They went through the ritual. The kids all sat on his lap, told him what they wanted for Christmas, and left.
The most important thematic part of this story is the incredible disparity between the rich whites and the poor natives. There is, of course, the visual of the white's houses, which are physically above the black neighborhoods, and would be much nicer. My dad's family would be dressed nice, but not fancy, while the begging Africans would be dressed in dirty, ragged clothing. Finally, there would be the indelible image of a young white child asking an older black man for something the black man would probably never be able to afford.
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