Netherlands Xmas Tradition...

[rynnor]

So, by your own admission the history doesn't matter as it's all bullshit and happened in the past anyway.

It's therefore just a harmless tradition celebrated by the non-racist and racially-inclusive masses.


Us stick-up-our-arse westerners have taken offence and want to ban something happening in another country, in another culture.

I dont think these things are ever either innocent or harmless but I am pretty sanguine about it.

I think they will consign it to history in the not too distant future.

 

[Raven]

I find your Avatar very racist indeed.

 

[TdC]

A friend got sick to death of people and stuck this up on his FB. note, the first language of this person certainly isn't English.

I would like to tell you a story about the character we call black pete in holland. I read this story in a danish newspaper a long time a go. The image of black pete is purely racist. Its a way how white people depicted black people in the past due to viewpoint of that time. If you see any play or old movie there is a big chance that the black person is played by a white person, made black with excaggerated black lips.

The danish article read something like this: the original person that accompanies saint nicholas was a moorish person, that means his skin is black, like the laughing gaper (lachende gaper) the person you see on top of an old drugstore. The person accompanying saint nicholas was a muslim, and very rich. How else would you explain his golden suit? Im the time that the moorish muslims tried to take over the world, and convert everyone to muslim (yes. A long time ago, learn your history. The crusades, and why the aya sofia was a christian church that got converted to a mosque.) and this person wasnt his slave but friend and partner, they fled to spain together, and its very likely that the rich moor supported nicholas( who wasnt a saint during his life but more likely a monk with a calling. and his calling was to take care of the homeless children, hookers and seamen in harbour areas. Like many monks had a calling. See valentine or franciscus.

Bottom line is they were friends and partners despite of religion or race. Its a story of brotherhood.
But the pete should not be depicted as a long gone racist stereotype. This is exactly yhe opposite of the true meaning of saint nicholas. Sad but true very stereotyping the true roots of dutch people. Roots we forgot, but still justify as real tradition. Its wrong. Why dont we teach about brotherhood, and forget the red lips and pitchblack paint. The surinam people accompanying saint nicholas in amsterdam when the tradition with the steam boat and kids awaiting him the 1930s were actual sailors, they knew their stories. Guess the rest...

 

[rynnor]

A friend got sick to death of people and stuck this up on his FB. note, the first language of this person certainly isn't English.

It's a nice re-interpretation but historical records of Black Peter being part of the St Nicholas day begin during slaving days with the 1853 teachers version. I imagine this re-interpretation is probably late twentieth century.

 

[Lamp]

Innocent or a sad racist stereotype hangover from the past?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet

Hmm. Eurotrashy, but each to their own.

I'll take Dickens "A Christmas Carol" over that. Simon Callow as Dickens obviously.

 

[Scouse]

The image of black pete is purely racist

I'd amend that to the history of the image of black pete is purely racist.

The image itself?

It's only what connotations people choose to associate that makes a thing racist. Looked at through the eyes of a child (which this festival is for) - there are no problems.

It's adults that fuck things up.

 

[Yoni]

It's a nice re-interpretation but historical records of Black Peter being part of the St Nicholas day begin during slaving days with the 1853 teachers version. I imagine this re-interpretation is probably late twentieth century.

Seriously who are you to tell Dutch people about their own traditions and what they mean to them. If you research further than Wiki you will have read that Piet may have been from dutch colonisation, however more likely from the Moors colonisation of Spain....

As I said earlier stop your nonsense....

 

[rynnor]

Seriously who are you to tell Dutch people about their own traditions and what they mean to them. If you research further than Wiki you will have read that Piet may have been from dutch colonisation, however more likely from the Moors colonisation of Spain....

As I said earlier stop your nonsense....

Do your research Yoni - that just isnt true.

 

[Raven]

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the route of the racist problem.

 

[old.Tohtori]

It's just tradition, everything doesn't have to be a huge racial thing.

I gues i was wrong, it has to be a huge racial thing

 

[Nate]

I think the point is, no one from outside the NL can join in this tradition. Anyone who knows this person from overseas(who would probably be 90% of his/her friends/family) would be disgusted naturally and see it as racist, ignorant or not of the background of the tradition.

And for that reason, everyone is weljel of the amazables traditing and it's drivingalolol them cray cray.

 

[Raven]

I gues i was wrong, it has to be a huge racial thing

ofc it does, it gives people something to complain about. For some people, banging on and on and on about racism in everything is a way to paper over their own racist views. Blacking up is not racist in the same way that stupid film where the two black guys white up to look like blond chics isn't racist.

 

[old.Tohtori]

First off;

And for that reason, everyone is weljel of the amazables traditing and it's drivingalolol them cray cray.

Excellent

Other then that, we have this in Finnish schools also. Not sure i they're using blackface anymore, but no one sees it as racist so i might be bias on this issue.

(Not this this, but similar situation)

 

[Kryten]

The vast majority of people who were offended by gollywogs are white people afraid of offending black people. I suspect the same applies here.
Not like it actually matters in the grand scheme of things. White people have one rather major thing in common with black people.
People.

 

[rynnor]

The vast majority of people who were offended by gollywogs are white people afraid of offending black people.

The vast majority of people in this country are white so that follows - are you saying its not offensive to black people?

 

[old.Tohtori]

Anyone here black? If not, crackers need to shut up about what is offensive to black people.

 

[dysfunction]

There is only one way to sort this out....





FIGHT!!!!!

 

[Raven]

I just asked a black colleague, he doesn't find it offensive.

Fucking choc ice.

 

[Yoni]

Do your research Yoni - that just isnt true.

You do your research.... Maybe off the Internet......you have heard from two Dutch citizens, one person who lived there and still you don't stop.

Go to NL experience their entire culture, not just the coffee shops,prostitutes and Amsterdam... NL is so much more that that.

Until you have done that in my opinion your words (albeit the words of the god wiki, because everything you read there is gospel apparently) are nothing more than those of a poorly educated, media influenced, ignorant fool.

 

[DaGaffer]

Interesting that the last Dutch overseas colony to get independence (Suriname) banned it about five minutes after they kicked the last Dutchie out...

 

[Yoni]

Interesting that the last Dutch overseas colony to get independence (Suriname) banned it about five minutes after they kicked the last Dutchie out...

It survived until last year, it was abolished briefly in the 1980s.

 

[old.Tohtori]

There is only one way to sort this out....

FIGHT!!!!!

Semi-naked girl on girl pillow fight you mean?

 

[TdC]

Interesting that the last Dutch overseas colony to get independence (Suriname) banned it about five minutes after they kicked the last Dutchie out...

tbh Surinam isn't really a good example for anything Gaff. the relationships the NL has with (former) colonies and provinces is extremely strange, or about the same as the ones the UK has with it's own.

 

[rynnor]

Semi Rant.

If you wish to bring facts to the discussion kindly do so - if you can show that Black Pete existed before a slaving era Teacher invented him please do.

If not then no amount of slaver over your keyboard is really relevant.

 

[DaGaffer]

tbh Surinam isn't really a good example for anything Gaff. the relationships the NL has with (former) colonies and provinces is extremely strange, or about the same as the ones the UK has with it's own.

I'm trying to think of an analogous British "tradition" we maintained in any of our colonies that was subsequently banned as racist before we'd addressed the issue at home first, and I can't think of one*; which isn't to say they don't exist, but as a society the British have been fairly good at expunging the more obviously racist stuff over the last 30-40 years.

I don't think it matters whether NL has a funny relationship with Suriname or not; a largely black country had a blackface character that came from their white former colonisers and they got rid of it as a racist relic. The end.

(*maybe marching season in NI, but that's not really an imposed British thing rather its a local Ulster Protestant tradition, so I don't think it counts).

 

[rynnor]

This is a pretty interesting analysis - http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/question/jan05/index.htm

 

[old.Tohtori]

Is it really racist to portray a slave from mutumbuland as a slave from mutumbuland? No, it's how the story/fact goes.

It's not upholding racist views, it's how black people were. It's a story, you wouldn't change how tall gimli is just to please a bunch of dwarves.

 

[DaGaffer]

Is it really racist to portray a slave from mutumbuland as a slave from mutumbuland? No, it's how the story/fact goes.

It's not upholding racist views, it's how black people were. It's a story, you wouldn't change how tall gimli is just to please a bunch of dwarves.

Except its not "how black people were". Its how white people saw black people and perpetuates that stereotype. And I wish people would pack it in with the dwarf analogy; dwarves in fantasy books aren't suffering from Achondroplasia or a hormone deficiency, they're fantasy creatures, like unicorns.

 

[Aoami]

moors weren't even black anyway

edit - Trolling aside. Yoni said somewhere something along the lines of 'who are you to tell the dutch their traditions are wrong'. Its funny because recently there has been a big scandal in Denmark. A Housing Association that is lived in by a Muslim majority refused to fund the traditional yearly Xmas tree in the Association garden. Its only a small thing but it caused uproar because WHO THE HELL ARE MUSLIMS TO TELL PEOPLE CHRISTMAS IS WRONG.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Except its not "how black people were". Its how white people saw black people and perpetuates that stereotype. And I wish people would pack it in with the dwarf analogy; dwarves in fantasy books aren't suffering from Achondroplasia or a hormone deficiency, they're fantasy creatures, like unicorns.

I didn't mean "how black people were", but if the story describes black pete as a baffoon with bad dutch, then that's how it is as much as gimli being short.

If someone came out and said that all black people are like black pete, THEN it's racist. Black pete is black pete, no matter how he was portrayed.

Stories shouldn't adapt to modern days just to appease modern people.