Come to the Netherlands, we have layers on this since Santa Claus is Coca Cola’s take on our Sinterklaas, who is usually acompanied by “six to eight black men” (more commonly known as “zwarte Piet”, black Pete). he was was taken to the US by Dutch immigrants, after which it evolved in the current Santa Claus. And it gets worse, because while it has alway been a bit of a battle between team Sinterklaas and team Santa Claus, the last twenty years or so there is a different battle going on between team “Dutch tradition” and team “kick out zwarte Piet”. Both of these last two teams are obnoxious, and would choose confrontation over dialogue every day of the week. This has resulted in a conflict with no end, where it would have been easy to phase out the blackface character with no fuss in a short time.
the last twenty years or so there is a different battle going on between team “Dutch tradition” and team “kick out zwarte Piet”. Both of these last two teams are obnoxious, and would choose confrontation over dialogue every day of the week. This has resulted in a conflict with no end,
Social conflicts like this are never about solutions but about performance, for the sake of getting attention. Ending the conflict would end the attention.
where it would have been easy to phase out the blackface character with no fuss in a short time.
Hmm, by removing Piet and thus hiding the traditional racist representation of black people, or by whitewashing him?
Would this be considered whitewashing though? From my understanding whitewashing is a practice that “hides” diversity, while in this case the goal would be to get rid of the racist background. Also, the goal would be to change the tradition itself, not simply leaving Zwarte Piet as a black man represented by white people, right?
My first December living in the Netherlands was kind of shocking, coming into the office one day and seeing a handful of my colleagues dressed up in full blackface… turns out the office was doing their normal Sinterklaas celebration and that was my introduction to Zwarte Piet.
I live in Germany and we have Weihnachtsmann which is at this point just the German word for Santa Claus with all the Coke optics. We used to have Knecht Ruprecht as a companion who never had racial coding but he is but a faint memory. In the past there was Christkind in the Catholic south who funnily enough was invented by Luther but is ousted by now I think.
The stupid thing is, there were already talks about moving away from the blackface. Of course the people at the television stations (who could make this happen) took their time, which caused the people of "kick out zwarte Piet’ to make a stir. So far nothing wrong, but they did this at the televized arrival of Sinterklaas, so now they had crying children on tv. This caused the “all brown people back to Morocco” crowd to scream outrage, and suddenly we are at the current stage with two very vocal groups screaming at each other.
My kids were still in the believing age when this started, and I never had a problem explaining the issues and the changes to them (Piet used to come through the chimney, when this wasn’t possible anymore he painted his face black to look the same, but now he realized this looks like blackface). The right wing voters had problems explaining, because they didn’t want to, and now they see it as a defeat by the “others”. Throw in some politicians who can only fare well if there’s disorder, and suddenly it takes over twenty years to phase out something that should have been gone a long time ago.
These culture war things are so stupid. Should be simple. Do we consider ourselves a racist country? If the answer is no, then if we are carrying out a super racist tradition we should take the super easy steps it takes to make it not racist. And it should be easy and not fucking matter, but instead we have politicians and protesters putting all this time and effort into fighting some imagined cultural battle that at the end of the day is wholly inconsequential to the quality of life of every day citizens. It’s infuriating.
Personally I think that every mistake is a teaching opportunity. In this context, rather than try to sweep the racism under the rug of history as quickly and quietly as possible, I think changes should be made but in a way that invites people (especially children) to ask questions about the background of the traditions and why those representations of persons of color are problematic and should be changed. Without this it just looks like an attempt to cover up and deny the existence of the past forms of discrimination, which especially does a disservice to people experiencing present forms of discrimination.
And also, maybe, dealing with these things should not be fast or easy.
Nothing about this is imaginary, because in some ways these problems haven’t changed much. There is value in spending time on it in the present.
All of that said, I am a white guy from North America, not a POC from the Netherlands, so my input is just an opinion.
Come to the Netherlands, we have layers on this since Santa Claus is Coca Cola’s take on our Sinterklaas, who is usually acompanied by “six to eight black men” (more commonly known as “zwarte Piet”, black Pete). he was was taken to the US by Dutch immigrants, after which it evolved in the current Santa Claus. And it gets worse, because while it has alway been a bit of a battle between team Sinterklaas and team Santa Claus, the last twenty years or so there is a different battle going on between team “Dutch tradition” and team “kick out zwarte Piet”. Both of these last two teams are obnoxious, and would choose confrontation over dialogue every day of the week. This has resulted in a conflict with no end, where it would have been easy to phase out the blackface character with no fuss in a short time.
Social conflicts like this are never about solutions but about performance, for the sake of getting attention. Ending the conflict would end the attention.
Hmm, by removing Piet and thus hiding the
traditionalracist representation of black people, or by whitewashing him?Would this be considered whitewashing though? From my understanding whitewashing is a practice that “hides” diversity, while in this case the goal would be to get rid of the racist background. Also, the goal would be to change the tradition itself, not simply leaving Zwarte Piet as a black man represented by white people, right?
“because he has to climb through Chimneys to deliver gifts for Sinterklaas”. “Has to”?! Is Piet a slave to Sinterklaas? /s /ragebait
I recently learned that Mikey Mouse’s classic look was derived from racist Vaudeville blackface dress:
Disney successfully evolved/hid/whitewashed Mickey away from his racist image roots, and few today would say Mickey is a reference to the racist past.
My first December living in the Netherlands was kind of shocking, coming into the office one day and seeing a handful of my colleagues dressed up in full blackface… turns out the office was doing their normal Sinterklaas celebration and that was my introduction to Zwarte Piet.
I live in Germany and we have Weihnachtsmann which is at this point just the German word for Santa Claus with all the Coke optics. We used to have Knecht Ruprecht as a companion who never had racial coding but he is but a faint memory. In the past there was Christkind in the Catholic south who funnily enough was invented by Luther but is ousted by now I think.
I just could not imagine, as an adult, caring about that shit. I think North America’s war on Christmas shit is dumber though.
The stupid thing is, there were already talks about moving away from the blackface. Of course the people at the television stations (who could make this happen) took their time, which caused the people of "kick out zwarte Piet’ to make a stir. So far nothing wrong, but they did this at the televized arrival of Sinterklaas, so now they had crying children on tv. This caused the “all brown people back to Morocco” crowd to scream outrage, and suddenly we are at the current stage with two very vocal groups screaming at each other.
My kids were still in the believing age when this started, and I never had a problem explaining the issues and the changes to them (Piet used to come through the chimney, when this wasn’t possible anymore he painted his face black to look the same, but now he realized this looks like blackface). The right wing voters had problems explaining, because they didn’t want to, and now they see it as a defeat by the “others”. Throw in some politicians who can only fare well if there’s disorder, and suddenly it takes over twenty years to phase out something that should have been gone a long time ago.
These culture war things are so stupid. Should be simple. Do we consider ourselves a racist country? If the answer is no, then if we are carrying out a super racist tradition we should take the super easy steps it takes to make it not racist. And it should be easy and not fucking matter, but instead we have politicians and protesters putting all this time and effort into fighting some imagined cultural battle that at the end of the day is wholly inconsequential to the quality of life of every day citizens. It’s infuriating.
Personally I think that every mistake is a teaching opportunity. In this context, rather than try to sweep the racism under the rug of history as quickly and quietly as possible, I think changes should be made but in a way that invites people (especially children) to ask questions about the background of the traditions and why those representations of persons of color are problematic and should be changed. Without this it just looks like an attempt to cover up and deny the existence of the past forms of discrimination, which especially does a disservice to people experiencing present forms of discrimination.
And also, maybe, dealing with these things should not be fast or easy.
Nothing about this is imaginary, because in some ways these problems haven’t changed much. There is value in spending time on it in the present.
All of that said, I am a white guy from North America, not a POC from the Netherlands, so my input is just an opinion.