Bifurcated Carrots

Zwarte Piets or Black Petes are a Christmas tradition in Holland.  It’s a tradition that dates back to the time of slavery, when most of the Netherlands population was white.  The basic idea is Santa Claus, who is white, has black helpers who do his bidding and give candy and presents to children.  The Zwarte Piet characters are almost always white people with face paint, bright red lips, earrings — sometimes nose rings, and wigs with black curly hair.

There are many excuses why this is not racist.  For example Piet is black from climbing down a chimney or whatever, or it’s just make believe and a long standing tradition.  Of course none of this explains why the red lips or short curly hair are necessary.  In previous years the Dutch have also shown a lot more tolerance towards traditions of other cultures, which made it a little easier to look the other way when it came to Zwarte Piet.  Now much of that tolerance isn’t so present any more, and the tradition of Zwarte Piet reflects much more current, underlying and structural problems within Dutch society.

Nowadays, about 20% of the country as a whole, and more than 50% in some urban areas are non-Dutch decent.  This tradition is becoming increasingly unacceptable to those people, together with some ethnic Dutch and many people from all over the world.  As incredible as it seems, major cities like Amsterdam still sanction and license events with this character, and it’s really time that stops.  It may be private parties continue in the years to come, but for a city to sanction public events, in public areas, is really a slap in the face to the non-Dutch people who live there.  I’ve posted before about some of the institutionally racist policies of the city of Amsterdam, which thankfully have been getting less common over time.  It’s time for the city to take the next big step.

The sketch/improve group Boom Chicago, based in Amsterdam, have done a nice parody: