Every year I dress up in blackface to play Zwarte Piet for the Sinterklaas celebrations here in the Netherlands. Now I read some American sources that try to claim this is somehow racist while it is in fact not. What do you think?

Raepdog Posted:

Its fine. After all clowns are jsut white face.

I wonder if people would offended if a black man were to put on white makeup and be a caricaturized white person…

I’d have to say blackface is racism, though. If it’s a holiday tradition then go for it. I value tradition over political correctness any day.

racism, here’s why:

wikipedia says that they tried to do colored pete instead of black pete where people wore blue face and it didn’t catch on because “Pete was black”...

bumociating it with santa doesn’t make it less racist.

Do the black kids just come in normal?

Raepdog Posted:

Do the black kids just come in normal?

They wear make-up as well as Zwarte Piet is not about race: Zwarte Piet got black from the soot in the chimneys when he’s delivering gifts.

Those piets put me in a filthy sack and abducted me to Spain when I was little.

And I didn’t see Santa there.

also now I know that you’re dutch. lol

I’m from Belgium and unlike the Netherlands we usually have one “zwarte piet” (“black pete” ) instead of “six to eight black men”. And the story I heard about that somehow got hooked up with Saint Nicholas (I don’t remember how).

TUBSWEETIE Posted:

I wonder if people would offended if a black man were to put on white makeup and be a caricaturized white person…

You’ve seen black comedians doing ‘white guy talking like a black guy’ impressions before haven’t you. They sound like . I usually make a point to complete the circle of political incorrectness with ‘white guy talking like a black comedian talking like a white guy’ impressions.