TRUMBULL COUNTY Black actor wants mall's apology

Cafaro-owned malls in black communities have black Santas.
By STEPHEN SIFFand PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A black actor whom Eastwood Mall officials snubbed as a Santa in a skit last month at the shopping complex still wants a chance to play old St. Nick.
"If they apologize, yeah, of course," said Brandon Martin, 18, of Youngstown, flanked by his mother, lawyer and the head of the Warren-Trumbull Urban League.
At a press conference Friday at Atty. Gil Rucker's office downtown, Brandon and his mother, Monica Beasley-Martin, blasted what they say they were told is mall policy: No black Santas allowed.
"What I was told it was their policy that Santa would never be black," Beasley-Martin said. "The main thing is that this is the season of Christmas, the season we think that color doesn't really matter."
Want meeting, apology
Beasley-Martin, a substitute teacher in the Youngstown schools and an ordained minister, said that all she and her son wanted was a meeting with mall owners at the Cafaro Corp. and an apology.
"People are more concerned on whether or not there will be a lawsuit than if we tell children that a black man dressed as Santa cannot convey the feelings of love and joy," said Rucker.
Anthony Cafaro Jr., Cafaro Corp. vice president, and mall manager Ken Kollar both said it is not the mall's policy not to use black Santas.
Rather, they said they just wanted to make sure there was continuity between the Santa in a skit put on by Youngstown Playhouse volunteers and the white, paid Santa who would be available for photographs after.
A Youngstown Playhouse official picked Brandon to play the role of Santa when another actor failed to show, but mall marketing director Melissa Householder nixed that choice, people on both sides of the issue say.
Defended the decision
Kollar and Cafaro defended her decision.
"I think there was a very practical reason why you would not have two different people play a role who do not look alike, whether it would be height, the color of skin or any physical attribute," Cafaro said.
Cafaro-owned malls in areas with a sizable black community do hire black Santas, he said. Santas for the McGuffey Plaza in Youngstown have been hired through advertisements in The Buckeye Review, a black-owned weekly newspaper, he said.
The professional Santas hired by an outside company to work in the Eastwood Mall in Niles are all white, he said, as are the vast majority of mall customers.
"We feel strongly about our position, and I don't feel we are going to be blamed and extorted by any organization," Cafaro said. "This is outright ridiculous. They are making a mountain out of a molehill."