(ThyBlackMan.com) “If we can’t have Black Pete anymore, maybe we should just burn a nigger every year to celebrate his demise.” This was mailed to Afro-Dutch TV host Humberto Tan after he dared to host an episode of his talk-show debating the Black Pete issue.
Since the 1930’s there has been a huge amount of criticism on the figure of Black Pete in the Dutch Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) celebrations. This criticism has grown over the years and for the last 30 years the campaign “Zwarte Piet is racism” has tried to make people see that there is a problem. They never asked for the celebrations to be cancelled, just some changes to root out the racist bullying people have suffered because of it and the always present connections to slavery. This was even explained in a 1987 episode of the Dutch version of Sesamestreet. This year, though, a massive “bomb” of repressed emotions has burst after a TV interview.
Last year performance artist Quincy Gario was beaten up and arrested by police during a silent protest when Sinterklaas arrived in the Netherlands. Two weeks ago he talked about what had happened to him on a well known daily talk show. The other guest Dutch singer and performer Henk Westbroek responded with such a lack of empathy that it sent shivers down the spine of many Afro-Dutchies. The debate started up again, a month before it usually 
does and this time it turned into an unstoppable snowball, tearing the shallow fabric of fake tolerance.
So, how racist is Black Pete, and how much pain does it bring black people?
Well, let’s start with the always present elephant in the room: the caricatural blackface. Black skin, big Afro, eyes wide open, slave earrings and a strange costume based on the ones high ranking slaves used to wear. Up untill the 1980’s he also usually spoke with a “Surinam-black” accent (this has officially changed, but unofficial Pete’s still do it sometimes.)
This imagery a primary problem with gollywog/blackface caricatures and iconography. It warps, distorts and exaggerates black bodies and points to a cultural/social period in history where blacks were openly ridiculed and seen as buffoons. And Black Pete’s image was made PRECISELY in that old, racist tradition.
Having relatives and friends in The Netherlands I am aware of the pain the festivities have brought the Dutch Black community: black children are bullied year round by other children being called “filthy C-word Black Pete”, ruining the party for them. My niece was told by a teacher: “Well, you can be Black Pete, you don’t need any make-up”. The kid was bullied so severely after that that she spent hours in the shower, trying to “scrub off the black”. In what you’d expect to be adult situations, workers are told by bosses and co-workers: “Where’s your boss then?” (meaning Sinterklaas), “Did you miss the boat?”, “You look just like black Pete”, “Oi, Pete, get over here!!” etc.
When questioned, the defenders of the celebrations claim “Pete isn’t a black man!! He became black because of the chimney soot.” When asked: why the lips and hair?? “his lips scraped on the chomney and his hair was curled by the fire.” The weakest excuse according to many. Especially as there are books still out there talking about Sinterklaas traveling with black child slaves (he freed them, but they still had to work for him,) and/or his favourite slave Pedro.
Anyway, does this stop the trouble?
Says a teacher: “A black pupil in one of my classes was wearing her hair out in and was wearing red lipstick and a young child came and asked Black Pete for sweets thinking she was him. Sorry, but kids do indeed think that Black Pete is a black person.” She adds that the bullying has become worse over the years: “Some black children have been so scarred by the bullying that they started to wet the bed once Sinterklaas returned to the Netherlands.”
Says Bryan Wijntak: “So for about 30 years, Black people have come forth and said, “Zwarte Piet is HURTFUL. He OFFENDS us and our sensibilities. He reminds us of a time when our bodies and likenesses were openly ridiculed and despised.” An empathetic people would, at the very least, heed the cries of the offended and carefully consider and listen to their concerns, if out of nothing more than HUMAN DECENCY. But NO, we are written off as overly sensitive whiners and complainers…trouble makers.
And then, when that decent and empathetic people would take into account the centuries worth of abuse, victimization, dehumanization and cruelty experienced by black peoples at their hands, they would probably say, “Well, considering what we have done to them, we should at least cater to their sensitivities and make a few changes. They’ve been through enough.” But NO…still dismissed as they defend their silly, demeaning traditions to the death. We never said we wanted to cancel the thing, just meet us halfway.”
Why can’t there be a few changes? Dutch people compared other Dutch people who did want to think outside the box and make a few changes: Pete’s of other colours, a change in costume, rainbow Pete’s to SS Members and Nazi collaborators and received death threats. Even the official Dutch Pete – actor Erik van Muiswinkel said he had wanted things to change for years, after he noticed the insults his own adopted African daughter suffered. He too now has become a figure of hate.
Strangely, Sinterklaas has been all about change from day 1:
At the very start of the celebrations (leaving behind the stories of Sinterklaas descending from The Devil, Wodan/Odin, a priest or whether he was Turkish or Spanish, Muslim or Catholic for another day) Sinterklaas always simply
arrived on his own with his horse and a magic bag. A century or so later he was also accompanied by black crows. A few decades later he was helped by children. A couple of centuries later the children dressed like the “Boogieman” – they had smeared some black stains on their faces. After that the helpers disappeared for a long time. The helpers did not return until the late 19th century, and suddenly the “Boogieman” looked more and more like a black man – a Moor. In 1845 Amsterdam-based primary school teacher Jan Schenkman wrote the book Sint Nicolaas en zijn Knecht (“Saint Nicholas and his Servant”).
This was, officially, the first time that the black-Spanish servant character was introduced into the Saint Nicholas narrative. The servant was described as a page boy or man, and depicted as a “dark person” wearing clothes associated with Moors. In several other versions Saint Nicholas is said to have liberated a young slave named Piter, who decided to serve Nicholas. And this is how things remained: In came the slave and coon trademarks: A white man arrives with a boat filled with black people that work for him. The white man is smart, the black one a big eyed buffoon. Also: Pete was the mean one who’d take the kids away to Spain in his bag if they were bad – this often made white kids afraid of black people, which did not help relations.
These days Sinterklaas, after many incarnations, has become the carbon for what became Santa Claus for the rest of the world. But instead of flying round the world in a sled and just delivering presents in one night, Sinterklaas is dragged out for nearly a month. He arrives round the 12th of November in a big boat filled with presents and his black helpers and doesn’t leave till December the 6th. This is a long period of time that returns year after and keeps dragging up the same pain and hurt for many. If you gave a party year after year, knowing that some of your friends hated it, would you still enjoy it??
Now the UN has started investigations, already saying that they fear the tradition is racist and “infringes the human rights” of black people and that it should be cancelled. Had there been a decent conversation in the last 30 years, things would have not escalated like this.
Sadly the Netherlands have not been tolerant since the mid 1990’s. TV comics and hosts are allowed to say things that would get you banned for life in some places, even the most insulting TV show can be shown without a problem and insults are wrapped in a cocoon of “freedom of speech”.
Since the debate programmes have shown sketches comparing Black Pete to abused African boat refugees, a sketch comparing a “house Pete” and a “house nigger” using imagery of abused slaves throughout the “sketch”. Another comic recorded a message as Sinterklaas, talking to children about how “brown people always ruin everything”.
Here are just a fraction of the responses of “decent” people to the black community since the debate started:
”All problems started when we brought you in. So if you want it to stop, get back to the dark of Africa.”
“We have to rid our country from things that don’t belong here: make a fist!!””You have withe PEOPLE and black ANIMALS – you have to have some difference.”
”Get out of the country, give back everything you stole.”
”Those lazy niggers should be glad to see blacks working”
”All those coons should go back to cooncountry. Netherlands is the Netherlands not a swarma country black pete isn’t black from shit like the coons but from the chimney.”
“if only you’d been born white”
In the Netherlands the Dutch word for ignore is “negeren” it includes the word “neger”, the Dutch word for nigger. It stems from a punishment during slavery and has been used in this way during the discussion (see picture.)
The debate is escalating daily and it looks like things could get worse in the coming months. All sense of perspective has gone, with a protest of Pro-Pete supporters coming Saturday. Black public faces are threatened on the web, and fights between black and white are expected. Some Afro-Dutch people have quickly joined a Pro-Pete support group, hoping they will be seen as “well-adjusted” and “not like the others”, which has caused friction in the Dutch black community. All this could have been avoided with just that one slight, subtle change.
Dutch detective Peter R. de Vries – famous in the USA for his work on the Nathalie Holloway case joined the debate today and tried to speak some sense:
”The fanaticism with which grown adults try to hold on to Black Pete instead of accepting the Rainbow Pete is quite worrying. The Ombudsman is right: everyone that mingles among several groups of people knows that there is a lot of racism and a hatred of foreigners. Children’s books and songs have been edited over the years, so why can’t a children’s celebration be? Black Pete is over, enter Rainbow Pete.”
Staff Writer; Daniel Cohen
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