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| Sinterklaas and Black Pete arrive in Almere |
In fact, Zwarte Piets are depicted as elves, helping out Santa.
There is a growing movement over there to ban Black Pete. Predictably, there are those who think a mountain is made out of a molehill by people who just need to get a sense of humor. Judging the matter from over here in the U.S. is tricky, though. There are practices on race that most would consider repulsive in this country which, when done elsewhere, I am inclined to give a pass.
For example, Finnish friends have told me of attending parties in the ’90s where everybody dressed up as “black,” right down to blackface and wigs. Many will be reminded of stories of college fraternities here condemned for having “ghetto” parties, blacking up and lampooning life among black people in the inner city.
With America’s history as well as its messy present when it comes to race, clowning around in blackface at a party is obviously callous and ignorant.
Black Pete, then, is not the Dutch’s version of a Finnish teen bouncing to Jay-Z in an Afro wig. Black Pete in 2013 is a lame, thoughtless thing, carrying an implication that all of that slavery and servitude and imperialism was some kind of cartoon. Black Hollanders often feel the same way, in a country where blacks from former colonies are overrepresented in housing projects.
Who are we to judge, some might ask. I would say that a country with our colonialist history is no less responsible for judging such matters than other ones. We’ll never eradicate racism entirely. But surely we can do something about white men made up as “Negroes” dancing down the street at Christmastime — which would never happen even in our non-post-racial country.
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