November in the Netherlands means Sinterklaas hysteria; all children, and many adults, can think of nothing else but the preparations for the biggest event of the year, the Saint Nicholas celebration on December 5th. For children, it is more important than Christmas itself: it is when they receive most of their presents, and lots of special parties and festive events take place.
So far so good, but there is (literally) a dark side to the tradition: in his endeavors of distributing presents to all children, Sinterklaas is assisted by Black Pete (Zwarte Piet), or more often by a team of Black Petes. Black Petes are typically incarnated by (white) adults, who dress in old-fashioned typical clothes and, most importantly, paint their faces black, their lips thick with red and wear curly hair (afro) wigs.
Trying to tell a Dutch person why this image disturbs you will often result in anger and frustration. Otherwise mature and liberal-minded adults may recoil from the topic and offer a rote list of reasons why Zwarte Piet should not offend anybody. “He is not even a black man,” many will tell you. “He is just black because he came down the chimney.” Then, you may reply, why aren’t his clothes dirty?
Is the Dutch tradition of Zwarte Piet, depicting Saint Nicholas' helpers in black-face, a cultural treasure or racism?
It's a little hard to say whether or not its offensive because Europe's history with black face is completely different from America's. I'm pretty sure that black face in America was once used to mock and make fun of black people. It was used as a way for white people to demean and act like they were black. They'd paint their skin not brown but black and act out offensive stereotypes.
Sinterklaas is a long celebrated tradition in Dutch history. I can assure you that 98% percent of the Dutch population do not think of zwarte pieten as something racist, including the black community within the Netherlands.
Nobody thinks of Zwarte Pieten as slaves or anything near those. They just help Sinterklaas and kids love them and treat them like elves. Are the Santa Claus' elves discriminating because they're all small and white?
it's blackface and very tacky
choosing to ignore your historically prominent role in slavery doesn't justify stuff like this, even if most people are okay with it
According to tradition:
Sinterklaas = a Turkish man
Zwarte Piet = a friendly freed slave (Moors or Berbers) who chose (yes, Sinterklaas freed him, he had a free will) to go into the paid(!) service of Sinterklaas
The curly hair is typical of the Moors/Berbers
The clothing is 17th century Italian, the switch was because they were chimney sweepers and deliverd the presents through the chimneys, which is how they became black
HOW is it racism that an entire nation celebrates the arrival of so many Turkish and Arab people that come to give the people a good time
But if they pull this off you will see me protesting against the Sugar Feast (it is SO offensive to diabetics) and the Feast of the Sacrifice (it is SO sad for all the animals and SO not needed), it would be the same as diabetics protesting against Halloween It is tradition, if you move to a country you better accept it, even if you don't like it...
there's tons of black families in the Netherlands that celebrate this as well and have no problem with it. so why should we? the zwarte pieten are nice and fun people, they give candy and presents to the kids, so they love them. kids believe their skin is black because they have to go through chimneys all the time to deliver the presents.
it might have been based on slavery hundreds of years ago, but the story (that obviously no one pays attention to) is that sinterklaas helped kid slaves escape from slaveryships and gave them these wonderful payed jobs to spread joy. it used to be a symbol AGAINST slavery in a time where that wasn't appreciated.
it's such an innocent and happy holiday. I don't get why a couple of adults who see racism in everything need to ruin this, when there's far worse problems in the world.
what's next? santa can't use his reigndeers anymore for his sleigh because it's animal cruelty?
Nobody thinks of Zwarte Pieten as slaves or anything near those. They just help Sinterklaas and kids love them and treat them like elves. Are the Santa Claus' elves discriminating because they're all small and white?
The elves aren't related to stereotypes like blackface though. Neither are they viewed as bad (zwarte pieten punish children).
40 years ago yeah, when kids also got punished by their teachers if they were bad.
A lot of people still say they take bad children with them in a bag. But anyways, even if they are viewed as good, they still stereotype black people. There's no reason to imitate people in a ridiculous way for fun. A lot of black people definitely don't like the idea of this. It'd be good if skin colour didn't matter for Sinterklaas' aids, everyone could just have a lot more fun with this.
It's tradition, black and other not-white people here (and there are much) celebrate it too and also don't see the problem. It's not offensive, why would it be offensive? It would be offensive if we just banned everything that's black or not Dutch.
Am I the only one in the Netherlands who doesn't give a single **** about Sinterklaas? I can't open Facebook without reading 302930 posts about Zwarte Pieten. For real, just STOP!
Am I the only one in the Netherlands who doesn't give a single **** about Sinterklaas? I can't open Facebook without reading 302930 posts about Zwarte Pieten. For real, just STOP!