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Interesting story on CNN.com
You know the story. Every December jolly St. Nicholas visits the children of the land -- accompanied by his servant, Black Peter, a goofy, singing, candy-giving Renaissance-clad figure in blackface, giant red lips and a curly wig.
What? That doesn't ring a bell?
It would if you lived in the Netherlands, where the visit of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet on December 5 -- the eve of St. Nicholas' birthday -- is a longstanding tradition. But it's a tradition that's been called into question in recent years, including by Roger Ross Williams, the director of the short film "Blackface," which looks into the character and his past.
Story here.
Though the story of Zwarte Piet is said to date back hundreds of years, it was popularized in a 19th-century children's book. The character is Sinterklaas' Moorish helper, and his arrival from Spain with Sinterklaas -- who rides a white horse -- has become a yearly celebration, complete with Sinterklaas' boat pulling into a Dutch harbor and a welcoming parade. Children and adults dress up as Zwarte Piet at parties.
"It's just tradition. It has nothing to do with racism," says Ronald Livius, a commodities trader who grew up in the southern Netherlands and now lives in Switzerland.
So the question is, is someone blacking up their face to play a traditional, fictional character racism? I have seen something very similar, and whilst I remember thinking that you'd not see it in the UK, I didn't find it offensive.
What do you good people think?
You know the story. Every December jolly St. Nicholas visits the children of the land -- accompanied by his servant, Black Peter, a goofy, singing, candy-giving Renaissance-clad figure in blackface, giant red lips and a curly wig.
What? That doesn't ring a bell?
It would if you lived in the Netherlands, where the visit of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet on December 5 -- the eve of St. Nicholas' birthday -- is a longstanding tradition. But it's a tradition that's been called into question in recent years, including by Roger Ross Williams, the director of the short film "Blackface," which looks into the character and his past.
Story here.
Though the story of Zwarte Piet is said to date back hundreds of years, it was popularized in a 19th-century children's book. The character is Sinterklaas' Moorish helper, and his arrival from Spain with Sinterklaas -- who rides a white horse -- has become a yearly celebration, complete with Sinterklaas' boat pulling into a Dutch harbor and a welcoming parade. Children and adults dress up as Zwarte Piet at parties.
"It's just tradition. It has nothing to do with racism," says Ronald Livius, a commodities trader who grew up in the southern Netherlands and now lives in Switzerland.
So the question is, is someone blacking up their face to play a traditional, fictional character racism? I have seen something very similar, and whilst I remember thinking that you'd not see it in the UK, I didn't find it offensive.
What do you good people think?
at Christmas time and turn that into the commercial feast it has become...
La Cabalgata de Los Reyes Magos de Alcoy
