Thank you! For every knee-jerk angry reaction, I get a positive one like yours, and I certainly appreciate it.

Rachel, you have a lot more patience with these people than I would have! You make your insightful points eloquently and your reasoning is brilliant, flawless. I would say unassailable but racists don’t recognize logic, or empathy.

Thank you so much for being a voice of reason.

I get your point, but do you then mean that even hate speech should be allowed? To me, the traditional portrayal of Zwarte Piet is hate speech, and that is banned in many places. It seems to me that the slippery slope argument you are using is the kind of distinction that courts and laws do make: drawing a line to establish the limits of free speech.

Pete is ALWAYS and FOREVER a servant. This reinforces the idea that Black people are meant to be servants. And the fact that whites are playing those Black servants adds an element of ridicule to the situation (not to mention the fact that they are often portrayed as clownish. Your comparison is a false comparison. Pete is a fictional character portrayed for the public in a way that ridicules an entire group of people – an historically oppressed group of people. An employee at Walmart is a real person with a real job who deserves respect and who deserves to have the opportunity for advancement.

Yes, Pete was/is a servant. And he’s (portrait) as black. So?
Does that mean you can never have black people as servants? So what if ablack person wants to work at Walmart? Does he starts his first day as general manager because nobody should be telling him what to do?
No, he starts at te bottom ladder, the servant…

Again, as I’ve said before, it doesn’t really matter what the origins were or what people’s intentions are. What matters is the effect it has on other people. The Dutch population is no longer all white and needs to truly accept that black and brown people live here too and are part of this society. This practice of blackface has become a racist representation of a servile, comical black person. Therefore it has to stop. End of story.

In any case, if it does derive from this mythical character (and, yes, I do see that Krampus, etc. may have similar origins), the fact that it morphed over time into a parody of an African just demonstrates the racism inherent in the current Black Pete image. All the more reason to abandon it. The current image was only invented in the mid-19th century. I still struggle to understand why it’s such a problem to give it up and move to Sooty or Rainbow Petes.

The frequently-stated comparison to elves is a false equivalence. Elves are imaginary. Black Petes are humans. No child sees a short person in the supermarket and says “Look Mommy! An elf!” That does happen to black people in supermarkets in the Netherlands.

That does not mean there are no racist people in the Netherlands. Of course there are, as there are in every country or culture (and certainly not limited to European cultures). The Netherlands have obviously played a role in the slave trade of the 17th and 18th century. Although this might or might not have had some influence on the appearance, it has nothing to do with the origin of black Pete, nor with the meaning of it.

Black Pete does not portray an African person, but is a mythical character of which the history extends back to even before the Romans brought Christianity to Northern Europe. When Christianity arrived to Europe, old Pagan rituals were kept but linked to Christian events or saints (Sol Invictus was celebrated on December 25th for example).

This is when the predecessor of black Pete became the demonic counterpart of the holy saint Nicholas. His role for the last centuries has been scaring the children and kidnapping the bad ones during Sinterklaas. As the good ones get gifts this has a great pedagogic value.

There have been multiple (regional) variations in the appearance over the last centuries, some of which had black masks rather than painted faces, and others, mostly further back in history, had more demonic features such as a chain or horns. If you look at Père Fouettard in France, Knecht Ruprecht in Germany and Krampus in Austria you’ll see the shared origin and meaning. Father Christmas was depicted with the same items including a chain in the past as well.

Painting ones face black has been done in the entire world for centuries before the African American slave trade began. Using charcoal was simply the easiest way to conceal a persons face. It is also done at other festivals such as Border Morris in Wales, São Vicente in Cape Verde or Hajji Firuz in Iran for example.

The simple fact that a fictional character is black does not make it racist. Calling black Pete racist is the same as calling the existence of Christmas elves racist towards short people. If black Pete was truly racist it would not be celebrated on Curacao, where the colored people actually paint their faces white to play Sinterklaas. Would this then be racist towards white people?

It is racist to claim that “Black Lives Matter” is racist. The “Black Lives Matter” movement has never claimed that white lives don’t matter. What it does claim is that black lives have not mattered and it’s time that they do. Black lives matter as much as white lives do. Just like if someone were, for example, raising money to help people with brain cancer, it is not necessary to say “But what about renal cancer, doesn’t that count too?”

Obviously Black Pete is not the leading problem in racism. I never said it was. There are many bigger problems, including what “Black Lives Matter” is aimed at improving: how blacks are treated in society, especially by law enforcement and the legal system. But Black Pete is still racist. You’re implying that it doesn’t matter, and clearly it does.

Hi, I’m sure black pete is the leading Problem in racism. Finish black pete ans from one moment to another all problems of The World will disappear. I wish to habe such a problem ans my life would ne very easy. Maybe its time for some people to think about the racism included in the slogan “black lives matter”
All the best
juley