Zwarte Piet 
In Today

We have been kind of jumping around the topic of what is so controversial about this Dutch celebration. Many may be thinking how a nice and cheery sounding celebration can be so bad? And the answer comes at the start of the holiday with the Intocht van Sinterklaas (the arrival of Sinterklaas) parade. Characters dressed up as Sinterklaas are paraded around the towns, with the onlookers also dressed up, but not only as Sinterklaas, but as Zwarte Piet himself.

 

Zwarte Piet, from the legends and lore that the Dutch believe, has darker skin, big red lips, frizzy black hair, and golden earrings, occasionally sporting a Caribbean accent. And that is how the Dutch people dress up to embody the character. They put on the big golden hoops, smother their lips in red, and smear their faces with black paint, participating in what is known as black face.

 

There is a long, unfortunate history of black face that goes back to the early 1900s. Originating in the entertainment business, both white and black people “blacked” up their faces for performances (both plays and tv shows) to create a caricature that promoted harmful stereotypes of black people. The reasoning for doing this really came down to the fear that white people had about the unknown of black people and believing that they are inferior to everyone else. They didn’t have a place in the white world, but they offered a nice opportunity to be the butt of every joke, even if they weren’t truly there. 

 

Unfortunately, black face is still around today. Not only in the Netherlands with this holiday, but ignorant people who don’t know the history, or don’t care about it still participate. In the US, there has been a recent crackdown of holding people accountable for making the mistake of doing blackface. Youtubers are apologizing, television hosts' shows are getting canceled, people's college acceptances are getting revoked when they are found out to have participated in blackface. So a good portion of the US is trying to fix these wrongs, and we also see these wrongs in the Netherlands, as do many other countries. 

 

The UN even has approached the Netherlands about this controversy, imploring them to have a conversation about this growing concern or maybe even make a change. 

 

But what does the Netherlands think of this? 

 

Right now, the country is divided. On the one hand, we have the people who agree with the need for a change. Since the 1980s, when a group of black immigrants from the Caribbean moved to the Netherlands, there has been push back on including Zwarte Piet in their Sinterklaas celebrations. The push for change has only grown in recent years with more protests taking place in 2011, 2013, and 2014 with the creation of the “Zwarte Piet is Racisme” movement. And even more with the Black Lives Matter movement taking place in 2020 during Covid. 

 

These people have been loud with their push for change, and they even got some. In certain cities, they have changed Zwarte Piet to be Schoorsteenpieten (Chimney Piet) or Soot Pieten. This character, rather than having a full black face with big lips and an accent, features soot marks from climbing down the chimneys. This is a change and a step forward, but not all people are participating.

 

Those who aren’t making any change are using the same rationale that the advocates of change are using. They claim that the fully black face is simply soot covering the entirety of Zwarte Piet’s face. But still, that doesn’t explain the accent and the red swollen lips. 

 

Many anti-Piet people believe that those pro-Piet just don’t understand the history and since they have never dealt with racism themselves, can’t empathize or even believe that it is real. But in the end, they are still doing damage to a community even if they do not mean to. 

 

The last thing to mention is the traditional aspect of Zwarte Piet. Many pro-Piet’s don’t want to let this character go because he is so iconic to them and their childhoods. They recognize the community and identity aspects of having this character and getting to dress up as him and they don’t want to let that part of the Dutch identity and history go. Because this has been a tradition for so long and is such an integral part of what they view to be Dutch, they see it is in their right to keep it. 

 

Still, as we mentioned in the history of Sinterklaas, a lot of the current traditions of this holiday only started in 1850. Is 200 years enough to make this truly an integral part of the Dutch identity? 

 

As much as I can say what I believe and pick a side, in the end I am not going to be the one making the end-all-be-all decision here. It is a national issue, and even if we try to make it global, if the Netherlands do not want to take our advice they won’t. As with all civil rights movements, there is still work to be done. We have to continue educating people of the histories and wrong doings of those before us. That is really the first step to change. So I implore everyone to do more reading, do some more learning, and more than anything else, share what you learn and aim to teach and learn something new, always.