Black Pete

These days Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet is just a children's feast. But too many grow-ups are being overly dramatic about it. Most "black" people i know have no problem whatsoever with Zwarte Piet, especially because he is more or less the star of the birthday. Kids like them the most.
It's just the weird USAmericans that can't deal with their own racism problems and like to point to some little country (with more freedom) as to distract attention from itself...

@Gelderland Cultures clash and people throw hissy fits when seeing others get their way with theirs. The grown ups are being bigger children about it than the children. Also, funny you say most black people you know got no problem with it. I know a few, yet it was someone from India that tried to boycot it because of the colour. Not gonna lie.. Had to laugh at him a bit, even if he was my boss at the time. It was all in good fun, though. Just isn't my boss anymore because I was running an internship at the time~

@Tay-Tech Hahaha really. I wouldn't expect someone from India to have a problem. I never see them as "black" although some do have quite dark skin. But than again, I hardly make any difference and almost never call anyone "black" or "white" or any other color.
Yes it's always grown-ups making a mess...

@Gelderland In my visits, I have found the Netherlands to have neither more freedom nor cheaper prices.

For example: The idea of laws requiring membership in an official government sanctioned club to buy Airsoft toys is, frankly, ridiculous.

And E3 for a Coke that's 25% of the size of one I buy for 89c US...

@Gelderland I don't think it's Black Pete himself that's the problem in this comic, it's that he has to be played by a white guy in blackface! Blackface has some pretty awful cultural/historic connotations.

There's also the more modern issues with hiring a white person to play a black character, a cis guy (or cis girl) to play a trans woman, or a skinny guy to play an obese character, when there are plenty of excellent black, trans, or fat actors who would *love* to play the part in a much more genuine way…..

@Ixion (idk how to respont so hope this works xD)
How can you say it is racist?
We are not sayin every black person dresses up like that, we say all black piets do,
It is a tradition, we are not teaching the children too tell them off or to despise them,
When i was a kid, i liked the black piets more then sinterklaas,
For someone who didnt even experience it, you have a big opinion
Saying this is racist is an easy judgement and from my point of vieuw not true.
I grew up with this, and am never was or will be a racist.

This like giving the unconscious mind that black person is just a kidnapper or criminal to a young kid, and when they grew up... they can call 911, after saw black person did nothing bad at all... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gV1DJNfAbiM
"If u ain't white, u ain't right"



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TsL3HYz_TFw&t=1150s
As a former Dutch colony, we also have this christmas "black Pete" tradition, that's why we still see our native peoples in the eastern part who have more darker skin as a criminal, and they did a bloody protest in 2019 before the "BLM".

I mean....yeah...everyone are racist, but "white caucasian's word" still have most powerful effect from colonial times till today, and white Christian mostly have more negative words like....
# Jews the Alien,
# Islamic the terrorist (after 9/11 instead of saying "Al-qaeda the terrorist" they more using "Islamic terrorist" You know...'If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as truth')
# Others are Heathen,
# Black the murder or mostly criminal,
# Asian the Virus,
# Hispanic or mostly Mexican the Rapist.

It just a little jokes for white peoples, but that "joke" always have the strongest effect to the world.
I mean...the churches today...white church...black church...Asian church...are still exist. It's already 2021, right?
That's why as a non-white, i'm more afraid with "white christian" :p

The Netherlands (and my home of Belgium) could easily get out of accusations of racism and changes to Zwarte Piet if they could just be honest about his origins. Presumably because of their religious pasts, the connections between our modern versions of Santa Claus and Saint Nicolas, and the old god Wotan has been hidden and later forgotten. Wotan (and his close-cousin Odin) had a raven companion that he had the power to change into a servant to help him. The servant being black because he was a human-raven.

@ANorwegianInBelgium Interesting, but still it does not really explain why black pete is a stereotype of a black servant and not just some black-guy with bird-like features.
I just read about this because I didn't know black pete. Turns out we call it "Père Fouettard" (Père = Father and Fouettard doesn't really mean anything but it comes from the word "fouet" = whip) in France and I knew the name, but I didn't make the connection with "black pete"

I'm still wondering how black pete came to be as he is today, because he's originally not meant to be a black servant (which he clearly is), he's supposed to punish children that behaved poorly. I believe he's called Krampus in germany but has evolved into a nicer version in netherlands for some reason (Krampus is more demon-like, and has devil horns and animal face).
The more likely explanation is that those 2 come from the same characters (that may have derived from a christianisation of Odin in germany) and my bet is at some point, santa's follower evolved into black pete and Krampus.
NB1: While black pete is santa's follower as santa's servant, Krampus is santa's follower as the one that comes after santa to punish unruly children, so even the meaning of follower seem to have diverged at some point.
NB2: While Krampus is easy to see as the christian dual of santa (santa is the saint and krampus is the demon), it's harder to see what black pete is. But If I had to guess, I'll say that first black pete had the same role as Krampus and was devil-like, but for some reason (xenophobia ?) it was represented as a black person, then as society changed, he just became a black servant (slavery and all that jazz) of santa... So in my opinion, it probably involves some sort of racism or xenophobia at some point in history but well... As does almost all human history after all.

That being said, to me, the real question is not "was it racist at some point in time ?" but "is it racist today ?"
And quite frankly, a big party that features a white man with his black servant is not racist per say but it's still reaaaally clumsy... And if you really think black pete comes from some raven servant of wotan, then just drop the servant costume (that probably comes from a 18th century version of the character anyway) and give him a bird one.

I'm done with the whole Zwarte Piet thing, it has been going on for years... Let's bring Krampus back! He is one of the reasons it is called Zwarte Piet. He has a bushel of twigs (roe) to hit bad children with and gives them salt instead of candy. He also has a whips, bells, fur and huge horns! And if the children are still not behaving, then he will put them in a sack and drag them down to hell. It is a Germanic (not German) tradition what has been banned by the church. I like this one so much better!!! :P

That looks offensive as hell.

@poodle_doodle As a white person i don't know how a black person would feel but imo its weird asf and also very offensive

i thought south africa was stereotypically white anyway =p

i get it's a tradition, but in 2024 if you did that, it's extremely racist. but i know that times have changed a BUNCH since 2012 or whenever this was.

maybe his clothes are sodproof?? idk

Why do they do this? I get that it's funny that Netherlands still does blackface even though there's an actual black person in the room but just seems so weird to me, maybe because I'm American where we care more about these kinds of things but...
And he's still racist even if he isn't intended to be an actual black person. Mr Popo from Dragon Ball Z is still racist even though he's a genie because he looks exactly like a blackface caricature. Jynx from Pokemon is still racist even though it's a Pokemon. You get the idea.

@Satwinner in the netherlands a lot of people (including me) also think its weird but apparently the tradition comes from really old from one guy that was a good person which is stupid but i have no idea how it turned racist. Except for that Sinterklaas is mostly for children that they get gifts when its 5 december (kinda weird that its teaching racism to children)