Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Bad Santas

For a few weeks out of the year, Santa gets to be the cats of the internet (meaning everything funny about the internet). Check out Off Duty Santa or Santa, No! for evidence.  To jump on the bandwagon, I wrote about Holland's coolest Christmas tradition for the Faster Times.
I'll give you a hint, it looks like this:


fancyplants said...

Hello Dave..

My wife would like to use your toilet, Dave..


Anonymous said...

santa's little blackface helper

you ask a hollish? (what to you got someone from holland?) person about that guy and they dont think it's racist.

Geert (Netherlands) said...

Dude (dudette? not sure:)) do your research. Sinterklaas or St. Nicolas, as our white bearded friend is called, is not a christmas tradition but an entirely different holliday.

"Black Pete" is nog a slave, just a helper like Santa's elves. In alot of stories and televisionprograms which are shown before the fifth of december you will see their relationship is not master-slave but friendly.

The reason they are black has two stories, one is that it are just normal boys who are black because of the climbing down chimneys to deliver presents. The other story is that, since St. Nicolas is partly based on a bishop who lived in Myra (Turkey), it's pretty obvious his helpers would be of a darker colour.

It's just plain stupid to look for racism in a harmless tradition for children.

PartyPooped said...

listen, dutchy. let me take you to a little school called the united states of not being a racist idiot. there's nothing inherently racist about the ideal that a black person accompanies santa. and everyone know that the tradition was started hundreds of years ago when people weren't quite so sensitive and whatnot. what IS racist is that in 2009, white people are still dressing up in blackface with red lips which is imagery that directly implies horrible things, and in no way can you argue is not offensive to black people. if you don't see the connection between blackface and racism, i suggest you lay off the hash and prostitutes for 25 minutes.

Geert said...

Woah. It's not that I don't see the connection. I do know the colonial, slavery undertone there might be et cetera. It's just that that's only one of the origins of the different aspects of the tradition. Why focus on that?

All I can say is that I grew up with this tradition and didn't turn out racist. Even a lot of non-white Dutch people I know don't have a problem with it at all. Why? Because it's just a harmless tradition for children. There are so much more serious racial issues to solve, so why focus so much on this? It also happens over here, such a pity. Maybe it's some kind of oversensitive guilt stricken white people political correctness thing.

Anonymous said...

Hey Geerty, might wanna google "minstrelsy" sometime and see what the fuss is about.

Anonymous said...


Anonymous said...

I'm with Geert (only hope his last name is not Wilders). Thing is, there are hardly any problems with black people in the Netherlands. No Dutch child will look at a Zwarte Piet and think its a negro.

Saying 'nigger' (or 'neger', in dutch) is also not such big thing in Holland as it is in the USA. Those things are less sensitive.

If there is racism in Holland (and ofcourse there is) , it mostly concerns the muslimsociety, not the black society, 'cause there IS no black society. A little culture-relativism would suit you.
Besides, something like what happened in New Orleans after Katrina could never happen here.

And Santa was inspired on OUR Sinterklaas.

Never felt such a patriot before. Now let's have some cheese.

Anonymous said...

thanks @party pooper. I'm the original anon poster and this whole thing is hilarious.

The thing is, if he really was santas little sooted up helper, why is he so completely black, why isn't he dirty like the chimney sweep in mary poppins.