A couple visiting a museum in Tennessee came across several racist requests and messages scrawled onto letters to Santa right by a Christmas tree in the museum.
The messages found at the Discovery Park of America, which looked as though they were written in children's handwriting, stated "I want a slave for Christmas."
"We went to see if they were still up. They were, but someone had covered them up with other pictures. I didn't believe the post until I saw them," Jessie Smith, who came to the museum after having seen videos of the messages posted to Facebook by another guest, told WREG. "My wife and I only saw three. We took them all down, and she turned them in. She said the worker seemed shocked."
Videos of the incident posted to social media sparked outcry amongst users, who condemned the hateful language of the messaging and questioned why employees of the museum did not intervene.
"Discovery Park of America pull the cameras and see who the perpetrator is. Y'all would use the cameras any other time to verify something on your grounds," wrote one Facebook user.
"There maybe a larger issue! Racism is alive and well in every nook and cranny of America and that means West Tennessee. The sooner we can be honest about it, the sooner we can change things for the better for all of us!" wrote another user. "Why were they hung at all? Inquiring minds want to know!"
The museum said in a comment on Facebook that they only hang decorations that are vintage, which meant that a guest must have added the racist cards themselves.
"As many of you know, we have a 'Letters to Santa' station as part of our Christmas celebration. From time to time, a guest will write something inappropriate on a letter. That happened tonight, and a guest saw it and let us know," the Discovery Park of America said in a post on Facebook. "Any inappropriate letters are removed and destroyed as soon as we see them. We apologize for any offense this may have caused."
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