vederlicht:

Tiger Beatdown: If you protest racism during Black Face season in The Netherlands, you will be beaten up and arrested

yamino:

redlightpolitics:

My latest about events that transpired this weekend during anti-racist protests in The Netherlands. Content warning for…

Woah, okay, I’m sorry if I angered you with my opinion, I really do. But as a Dutch person who was born and raised in this country, I never -ever- came across any family who explicitely used Sinterklaas as a tool to teach children to mock and make a fool out of other races. My father always told me that Zwarte Piet was a black man, not a guy who came down a chimney and was soot-covered because of that. But did I grow up to learn that black people are therefore silly and inferior? No. And neither did any of my friends.

Okay, Sinterklaas has a very sensitive background and history. I’ll admit, as an ‘indoctrinated’ Dutch person, that when you truly think about it, it’s a bad tradition and can definitely set a bad example. But what are we expected to do with a tradition that has been lodged into our culture for centuries? It’s easy to say that we should change Zwarte Piet into White Piet or think up a different kind of race-friendly not-offensive-to-anyone-at-all henchman for Sinterklaas. Maybe we should. It might be a good idea.

But listen to this: Sinterklaas goes way more back than the times when it was Saint Nicholas and his slave helpers. Sinterklaas was originally Wodan/Odin, the Norwegian god. He was depicted as an old man with a long white beard, a cloak and a spear (which is now a staff). He rode on a horse called Sleipnir (which is now Amerigo who rides on the rooftops). He was the god of wind and that can be traced back to the song “Hoor de Wind Waait Door de Bomen” (“Hear the wind blowing through the trees”) which is a Sinterklaas song everyone knows here. The Zwarte Pieten weren’t originally even human. Wodan had two ravens who would fly around the world and report any happenings to their master. Zwarte Piet is said to check on children and tell Sinterklaas whether or not they’ve been good. So perhaps if we went back to that format, it would be a lot better. I’m not saying this to be sarcastic. I’m serious. But I’m afraid now that it’s been mixed with religious (and other) aspects, that won’t be so easy.

Again, I’m sorry if my commentary made you angry. It’s just that the way this article was written, it made it look like all Dutch people are racists and that everybody looks down upon Zwarte Piet and the black community as inferior, silly and something to be laughed at. Of course, there are the rotten apples who do and I resent those people. But coming from someone who’s lived in the country all her life and knows a great deal of people who all celebrate this tradition; nobody I know is a racist and teaches their children to be racist.