Let's hear it for the legislature!
http://dynamicafrica.tumblr.com/post/90894666918/zwarte-piet-a-tradition-of-blackface-in-the
In 2011, legislators in the former Dutch colony of Suriname
stated that government-sanctioned celebrations involving Zwarte Piet
were considered an insult to the “black part of Suriname’s community.” Demonstrators in Amsterdam held an anti-Zwarte Piet protest in 2013 on
the weekend of the city’s Sinterklaas celebration in November. And now,
in 2014, something that’s been a long time coming has finally happened.
An Amsterdam court has ruled that the traditional Dutch figure Black Pete is offensive due to its role in continuing stereotypes of black people.
Some clips from article showing history of this stereotypical event:
In a book published in 1850 and written by Jan Schenkman, Sint Nikolaas en zijn Knecht (“Saint Nicholas and his Servant”),
the foundation of a Christmas tradition where the Dutch paint their
faces black, emphasize their often non-existent lips with red lipstick,
wear kinky-textured wigs and Renaissance period attire, was birthed
through a character known as ‘Zwarte Piet’. Although not named in Schenkman’s book, the name ‘Pieter’ would not appear in print until the publication of the 1891 book Het Feest van Sinterklaas, the
Amsterdam-based primary school teacher depicted Saint Nicholas’
‘servant’ as a young page with dark skin and wearing clothes typically
associated with Moors at the time. The book stayed in print for a
hundred years, until 1950.
This Dutch folklore character was portrayed as a ‘helper’ of
Sinterklaas (Santa Claus), also known as Saint Nicholas. According to
some depictions in medieval European folklore, Saint Nicholas “is
sometimes presented as taming a chained devil, who may or may not be
black”, and who some allude to being changed to represent a Moor,
essentially Zwarte Piet, in post 19th century Germanic European folk
literature. Part of this change came about as both teachers and
clergymen became concerned with the way Sinterklaas, who was essentially
a saint, was being portrayed. Folklore often depicted Saint Nicholas as
some sort of a boogeyman who scolded bad children and made them fearful
of him. Sinterklaas had more terrifying qualities than good ones, most
of which were later transferred to Zwarte Piet.
Thus, what some say began as a ‘black devil’ was later transformed
into a more human form, at the same time that it dehumanized and
demonized the very people it portrayed.
