Dutch Racism

[Rommie]

So I really like Dutch people and culture and all that, but every year leading up to Dec 5 they have a pretty racist Christmas tradition. Basically Sinterklaas, ie St Nick, has a helper named Zwarte Piet who is a white guy who puts on blackface complete with red lips, a curly afro, and gold earrings. If you suggest this is not entirely appropriate, however, the Dutch will immediately attack you in turn, saying it's a children's festival and if you see something wrong with it you're the racist "because everyone loves Zwarte Piet!", and he's only black because he went down the chimney/ clowns wear gold hoop earrings and red lipstick and he's a clown, and if you don't like it just don't participate (impossible, this guy is everywhere in this country for a few weeks from grocery stores to Christmas lights) or "go back where you came from."

Anyway, a few days ago some UN commissioner said Zwarte Piet is probably racist, so one million Dutch people joined a Facebook group to support Zwarte Piet in a country of 17 million (it's closer to 2 million now...). link here

I guess what pisses me off is ok if Dutch people want to do this it is their country and all, but if you're condoning it don't go around pretending this tradition is not something it is (Zwarte Piet did show up in the 1800s as Sinterklaas's slave when it was fashionable to do such things, but now the official line is they're just good friends or something). If I decide to make a trickster helper for Santa with beady eyes and a hook nose named Hebrew Harry, and if you think that's inappropriate you're not going to buy it when I tell you he's not a racist charicature because children don't see it and the fact that you do makes you the racist. And pretty much everyone in Dutch society will tell you this.

I know people don't like it when you mess with their warm and fuzzy childhood traditions, but tradition is a pretty crappy reason to uphold many things.

[Swift]

I've found that Europeans are fairly blind to their racism. When I lived there I found it common for white Europeans to say "we're not racist, that is only a problem you Americans have". There was a Swedish fellow I knew who was particularly proud of the lack of racism in Sweden; I pointed out to him that his country (at the time) was 99% white, blond, Lutherans.

Yet Europe has had a lot of difficulties with immigrants from Africa (Northern Africa in France) and Western Asia, and they have never learned to deal with the Roma going back maybe a 1000 years (and at the moment a newly awake issue). And of course they've had difficulties with the extreme anti-immigrants too (Nazis, neo-Nazis, and similar).

Maybe it is an advantage in the US that we've been forced to deal with the issue, even if we haven't been completely successful in it (but certainly much improved, even in my lifetime).

[Rommie]

Yeah, basically the standard Dutch response is Americans are just hyper-sensitive on these things because we used to have slavery and they didn't... but they're not big fans if you point out the Dutch were perfectly happy selling us the slaves, or the skeletons in the closet in Indonesia. (Also, Zwarte Piet is a good stereotype I've been told, so it's fine. When I point out so was Uncle Remus and the Dutch say "who?" my response is "exactly.") Sweden's an interesting one though because cases of xenophobia there are on the rise as the demographics begin to shift- for example all Syrians now get amnesty if they move there, so I'm guessing they're now going have a huge Syrian community and that'll play out in interesting ways in coming decades.

If I really want to burn bridges with Europeans btw I've noticed a good way to do so is point out Barack Obama would not be elected in their country- I tell them to imagine a child with a Moroccan father for example growing up to be prime minister, and in most countries they know that would never happen (maybe it would in the UK, but there class is so important still I think that would be a significant barrier too). There's a certain type of European that tend sto not like it when they can't just be morally superior all the time to Americans who all presumably cling to guns and drink shitty beer.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Meh, they didn't have slavery in the Netherlands (nor for that matter, England or France), but in their colonies.... that's another matter altogether.

Although slavery was illegal inside the Netherlands it flourished in the Dutch Empire, and helped support the economy. By 1650 the Dutch had the pre-eminent slave trade in Europe. They were overtaken by Britain around 1700. As of 1778, it was estimated that the Dutch were shipping approximately 6,000 Africans for enslavement in the Dutch West Indies. The Dutch shipped about 550,000 African slaves across the Atlantic, about 75,000 of whom died on board before reaching their destinations. From 1596 to 1829, the Dutch traders sold 250,000 slaves in the Dutch Guianas, 142,000 in the Dutch Caribbean islands, and 28,000 in Dutch Brazil. In addition, tens of thousands of slaves, mostly from India and some from Africa, were carried to the Dutch East Indies.

[Swift]

A perfect example

(CNN) -- It's supposed to be known as the "Beautiful Game" but the ugly face of racism returned to haunt European football once again Wednesday.

Manchester City's Yaya Toure, the Ivory Coast midfielder, was subjected to "monkey chants" during his side's 2-1 Champions League win against CSKA Moscow in Russia.

[pumpkinpi]

Perhaps people in Europe don't see a problem with racism is because those who are oppressed don't have enough advocates. No political figures working on this issue, no internal uprising/protests at a large scale. (That I'm aware of.) No one can hear them if aren't making any noise.

edit: I re-read this and realize it could come off as insensitive. I'm not blaming the oppressed groups for not speaking up.

[Rommie]

I think the next time someone tells me Zwarte Piet is black because he went down the chimney I'm just going to ask if they're really that stupid or just think the rest of us are.

/ end rant

[Swift]

Perhaps people in Europe don't see a problem with racism is because those who are oppressed don't have enough advocates. No political figures working on this issue, no internal uprising/protests at a large scale. (That I'm aware of.) No one can hear them if aren't making any noise.

I know there have been some "troubles" among North Africans in France; not sure I'd call them riots, but that kind of thing. But I think they get ignored/dismissed as "troublemakers" and "youths".

I don't know of anything comparable to the US's civil rights movement, so you may be correct.

My impression is also that things are different in the UK. At least Indians and Pakistanis are pretty well intergrated in society, and my impression is that is pretty true for other minority groups, but maybe that's my ignorance.

[The Supreme Canuck]

My impression is also that things are different in the UK. At least Indians and Pakistanis are pretty well intergrated in society, and my impression is that is pretty true for other minority groups, but maybe that's my ignorance.

On the one hand, yes, since the UK follows the Anglo-American model of multicultural integration, whereas the Continent (and Quebec) does not. They follow an exclusionary nationalistic model. On the other hand, this nearly happened.

[geonuc]

I know people don't like it when you mess with their warm and fuzzy childhood traditions, but tradition is a pretty crappy reason to uphold many things.

Yeah, I believe that is essentially the argument the Washington Redskins football team owner uses when faced with demands to change his team's name: he claims a long tradition that needs to be upheld.

[FZR1KG]

On the one hand, yes, since the UK follows the Anglo-American model of multicultural integration, whereas the Continent (and Quebec) does not. They follow an exclusionary nationalistic model. On the other hand, this nearly happened.

Not to sound like a complete dick but whats the issue with this?

[The Supreme Canuck]

A) It creates a xenophobic, foreigners-are-bad, "Show me your papers, darky!" atmosphere in society.
B) There's no real illegal immigrant problem. This is just race-baiting to distract from real issues and to drum up support for repressive measures.
C) Shit like this.

[FZR1KG]

A) It creates a xenophobic, foreigners-are-bad, "Show me your papers, darky!" atmosphere in society.
B) There's no real illegal immigrant problem. This is just race-baiting to distract from real issues and to drum up support for repressive measures.
C) Shit like this.

A) Not that I can see. Some people will think that way no matter what. Others will have no problem letting in terrorists. Most people would see illegal immigrant as the problem, not immigrants overall.

B) Its not up to us to say if there is a problem or not. According to the article 50,000 illegals reside there. When is it a problem? 500,000 5 million? They are there illegally. That is the real problem. It becomes a bigger problem if that is never enforced.

C) Or shit like this: Oz insulation mess. Just making the point that even a great idea turns to shit under incompetence. The incompetent handling of an issue however is not a reflection on the validity of the issue itself.

I can understand your points but what would you propose be done?
Continue as they are and the problem will be far greater eventually and as they say, a stitch in time. Normally we condemn a government for not acting soon enough. Now we are condemning them for acting on something early before it becomes hard, expensive or impossible to do something about.

I totally agree with the stupid idea of texting people. wow that was dumb.

Another point, history is riddled with people deliberately screwing some idea up because it makes everyone far more reluctant to try again. Just look at politics in the USA. This could possibly have been done by someone with an agenda to keep illegals in the country. Lots of money in cheap labour you know. I can't believe you want all those little itty bitty children living in slavery so some corrupt evil people can get more filthy rich off their sweat and blood.

[Cyborg Girl]

Racism is like a really vile fart. If introduced to an improperly ventilated political environment, it will linger around and contaminate everything it touches. What's worse, people will stop noticing it after a while. And when some unfortunate outsider comes in and starts gagging, they'll fervently deny that anything is amiss.

That is pretty much what happened in the US, and why I consider most talk of an "illegal immigration problem" to be suspect. Some windows have been cracked open, but the old farts are still dissipating. So to speak.

[Rommie]

Racism is like a really vile fart. If introduced to an improperly ventilated political environment, it will linger around and contaminate everything it touches. What's worse, people will stop noticing it after a while. And when some unfortunate outsider comes in and starts gagging, they'll fervently deny that anything is amiss.

That is pretty much what happened in the US, and why I consider most talk of an "illegal immigration problem" to be suspect. Some windows have been cracked open, but the old farts are still dissipating. So to speak.

Am I the only one really concerned about what GJ's been eating lately?

[FZR1KG]

Racism is like a really vile fart. If introduced to an improperly ventilated political environment, it will linger around and contaminate everything it touches. What's worse, people will stop noticing it after a while. And when some unfortunate outsider comes in and starts gagging, they'll fervently deny that anything is amiss.

That is pretty much what happened in the US, and why I consider most talk of an "illegal immigration problem" to be suspect. Some windows have been cracked open, but the old farts are still dissipating. So to speak.

If there is only one farter in the room, any outsiders will view everyone in the room with suspicion.
And even if all the farting has stopped, anyone entering the room will still condemn everyone in there for it.
After the air has cleared and there are no farters or smell in there whatsoever, outsiders will still treat the room and its occupants like they stink.
Generations later and descendants of those people in the room will still be judged with suspicious eyes.

For interest, at which point is it when it is the outsiders that are the farters?
The correct answer is all of them.
Like many things, when one fights against a problem often and long enough they themselves become immersed in it saturating themselves that they are indistinguishable from the very problem they set about fighting.

[SciFiFisher]

That is pretty much what happened in the US, and why I consider most talk of an "illegal immigration problem" to be suspect.

GJ - do you mean that you believe that most illegal immigrant rhetoric is really just closet racism? Or possibly the reaction of the tribe to outsiders who want to change things?

I think I would like to share some observations with the group:

Currently there are somewhere between 11 and 13 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. In an interesting coincidence there are approximately 13 million people who are unemployed in this country. No, correlation does not equal causation but I thought it was interesting to note this.

Some other interesting facts about illegal immigration:

Crime rates among illegal immigrants are as much as 50% higher than among non-illegal migrants.

Many crimes committed by illegal's are committed by career criminals who have been deported one or more times.

No one can seem to agree on how much it costs but everyone agrees that where illegal immigrants are most concentrated they create a net cost to the system. There are estimates as high as $100 billion dollars nationally.

The human toll is huge due to the fact that many illegal immigrants wind up being either victims (i.e. human slavery, forced prostitution, crime) or commit crimes themselves.

There are estimates that illegal immigrants being willing to accept lower wages has driven down wages as much as 7% overall in areas affected by this issue. Imagine walking in one day and being told your construction job that pays $15 per hour is now going to pay you $14 or less per hour because the guy working next to you is willing to work for less.

Real wages in the US are at or below the level they were at in 1970. At the same time we have one of the largest number of illegal migrants in the country in the history of the country. This also coincides with organized labor being weaker and representing fewer workers than it has in almost 50 years. Again, difficult to prove that correlation = causation but these are factors that definitely play a part.

Being here illegally in the U.S. is a crime. Yet, there has been a huge push to view illegal immigrants as not being criminals. IMO people who drive over the speed limit and get caught not wearing their seat belt are treated as being more criminal than an illegal immigrant. Yet, comparatively speaking both are equal violations of the law.

There are a large number of people who say the solution is to reward those who have broken the law and grant them a path to citizenship. Essentially rewarding them for breaking the law and putting them to the front of the line ahead of hundreds of thousands of people who are attempting to follow the rules and enter this country legally.

While it seems quite humanistic to champion the poor immigrant who wants to come to Amerika and realize dreams of a better life it seems we are really supporting a system that supplies cheap labor that unfairly competes for jobs and lets the rich continue a system of cheap (slave) labor that can wait on them hand and foot. Is that really what we want?

[geonuc]

Am I the only one really concerned about what GJ's been eating lately?

And what he's been smoking.

[Morrolan]

Zwarte Piet really is a remnant of a shameful past, but I'm probably in the minority in the Netherlands if i say this.

to be honest, i don't think there's one kid that ever thought coloured people are inferior because of Zwarte Piet, in fact ever since I can remember (way back to the early 60's) Piet always was depicted as an important and vital part of Sinterklaas' 'Pakjesavond' (gift night) operations, but the depiction of the black faced "Moor" or any other person of African descent in this manner is simply not acceptable.

and if Zwarte Piet really is a chimney sweep, why can't you just colour them with a few sooty streaks on their face? because, honestly, that is probably abut as 'black' as any chimney sweep ever gets.

regretfully, though, most Dutch will get really defensive and even angry when you bring this up.

[Sigma_Orionis]

I've been reading up on this "Black Peter" character.

According to the Wikipedia entry, it seems that in the early days, when St. Nicholas was doing his toy distribution gig, he carries a shackled devil as an assistant (since good ole' St. Nick had triumphed over evil, he enslaved the devil and used him as a helper when distributing gifts). Apparently, it transformed into a Moorish assistant during the 19th century. So the excuse of the "Chimney Sweep" looks at best like a charitable lie

Sort of reminds me of the Lone Ranger and his American Indian sidekick Tonto. (BTW, Since "Tonto" means "dumb" in Spanish,down here, we were told that his name was "Toro" (Bull)), As minorities in the US became more powerful the Tonto character become more developed, stopped speaking in Pidgin and became an equal to the Lone Ranger.

It seems that some of that is happening with Zwarte Piet:

Until the second half of the 20th century, Saint Nicholas' helper was not too bright, in line with the old colonial traditions. Once immigration started from the former colonised countries, Zwarte Piet became a much more respected assistant of Saint Nicholas, often inattentive, but playful.

Don't mean to sound sanguine, but I don't see why the Dutch (or the damned Yanks, or anyone else for that matter) should be ashamed of the skeletons in the closet caused by way the older generations did things (remember EVERYONE did it, there were no innocent parties). It won't fix a damned thing today. No. it's nothing to be proud of either, but pretending it didn't happen won't fix a thing either. Sort of like a saying I once heard about poverty: "Don't be ashamed to be poor, but don't be proud of it either, just get rid of it as fast as you can".

So, yep, sounds like some people in the Netherlands don't want to be reminded of their past. Pretty silly if you ask me.

[Swift]

Sort of reminds me of the Lone Ranger and his American Indian sidekick Tonto. (BTW, Since "Tonto" means "dumb" in Spanish,down here, we were told that his name was "Toro" (Bull)), As minorities in the US became more powerful the Tonto character become more developed, stopped speaking in Pidgin and became an equal to the Lone Ranger.

"Tonto, 10,000 Souix warriors have surounded us; I think we're in trouble"
"We Kemosabe?"

[Sigma_Orionis]

I guess the Potawatomi had no issues with the Sioux

[Rommie]

Sigma, David Sedaris did a pretty awesome explanation of the whole thing.

Relevant quote: "I learned that Saint Nicholas travels with what was consistently described as "six to eight black men." I asked several Dutch people to narrow it down, but none of them could give me an exact number. It was always "six to eight," which seems strange, seeing as they've had hundreds of years to get a decent count.

The six to eight black men were characterized as personal slaves until the mid-fifties, when the political climate changed and it was decided that instead of being slaves they were just good friends. I think history has proven that something usually comes between slavery and friendship, a period of time marked not by cookies and quiet times beside the fire but by bloodshed and mutual hostility."

Morrolan, I think you really hit the nail on the head here.

[geonuc]

David Sedaris is funny as hell. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[Rommie]

David Sedaris is funny as hell. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Saw him in Amsterdam a year ago, front row seats for a TV show. Think I posted the link here, it was great fun.

I actually got one of the books after that but found I didn't think it that funny, which was disappointing as he was a funny guy and I've come across essays he's done that I liked. Maybe I should attempt another?