This month, Megyn Kelly tested American tempers by commenting on the supposed race of Santa. Looking abroad to Holland, Sophie McBain reflects on this year’s debate over “Zwarte Piet,” or “Black Pete,” a companion to Saint Nicholas (aka Sinterklaas) usually depicted in blackface:
This year, Sinterklaas has sparked a debate so fierce that even the UN has become involved. At the root of the controversy are Sinterklaas’s helpers, called theZwarte Pieten, or Black Petes. “And do you know why Zwarte Piet is black?” I remember my grandma asking me. “It’s because he comes down the chimney to bring you your presents.” This is the story told to most children in Holland, but Zwarte Piet isn’t smeared with soot like Dick Van Dyke after a longday on set. His whole face is painted black and he has thick, painted-on lips, a black curly wig and thick gold hoop earrings. …
No one likes their festive traditions tampered with –imagine trying to implement a countrywide ban on Christmas trees in the UK – but emotions over Sinterklaas run deeper. Most Dutch people identify themselves as inherently liberal, yet attacks on Zwarte Piet have been construed as an attack on Dutch identity – which is political dynamite, given the rapid growth of the far-right in recent years. The deputy prime minister Lodewijk Asscher’s insistence that “You can’t say the whole of Holland is racist” has struck a chord with many who feel aggrieved that a beloved childhood tradition has attracted such condemnation.
The problem is that even if a practice isn’t intended to be racist, it can still be hurtful, discriminatory and, yes, racist. Underneath the popular insistence that Sinterklaas is just a cosy children’s event, some worrying and ugly sentiments have come to light. Organisers hoping to hold the first ever “Rainbow Piet” parade, featuring multicoloured Piets, had to cancel their event in October after receiving death threats.
Akim Reinhardt proposes a parallel between Zwarte Piet’s blackface and the “red face” encouraged by American pro sports teams with Native American mascots:
Americans such as myself can be quick to judge and condemn.
Living in a country that saw a protracted civil rights movement reach its apex half-a-century ago, the knee jerk reaction is to condescendingly nod our heads and mutter something about Europe’s backwards race relations. We know our own state of race relations is far from perfect. But black face in 21st America? And directed at audiences of children no less? Incomprehensible.
But what about red face? The Kansas City Chiefs football team. The Cleveland Indians baseball team. The Washington Redskins football team. The Atlanta Braves baseball team. The Chicago Blackhawks hockey team. And beyond professional sports teams garnering huge profits, there are also prestigious research universities like Florida State University and the University of Illinois that continue to field sports teams with Indian names and mascots, have many fans who dress up in red face, and even present sanctioned red face Indian performances for the crowd.
Black Pete is atrocious, and just about everyone outside of Holland gets that. But America’s Indian mascotting is also disgusting. Yet many Americans are as blind to their red face minstrelsy as the legion of Dutch supporters are to their beloved black face minstrel.
Recent Dish on race and Christmas conventions here, here, and here.
(Image of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet via Wikimedia Commons)
The Dish 
