{"id":3036,"date":"2014-11-15T17:50:27","date_gmt":"2014-11-15T17:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=3036"},"modified":"2014-11-15T17:50:27","modified_gmt":"2014-11-15T17:50:27","slug":"zwarte-piet-black-pete-still-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/zwarte-piet-black-pete-still-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Zwarte Piet &#8211; Black Pete, still there?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Sinterklaas, wie kent hem niet? Sinterklaas, Sinterklaas, en natuurlijk zwarte piet!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is how a\u00a0<em>kinderliedje\u00a0<\/em>goes that is sung around\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas\u00a0<\/em>time. See it here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Het Goede Doel - Sinterklaas wie kent hem niet\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DN2DF1DAFH0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Natuurlijk zwarte piet<\/em>. Of course! He is part of the Dutch\u00a0<em>Sinterklaasfeest\u00a0<\/em>and annual tradition like nothing else. White Dutch people paint themselves black and dress up as\u00a0<em>zwarte piet<\/em>, the kind and nice helper of\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas.\u00a0<\/em>They spread\u00a0<em>pepernoten\u00a0<\/em>and other\u00a0<em>lekkers\u00a0<\/em>all over the place, give hands full to kids waiting for\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas\u00a0<\/em>to pass by with his\u00a0<em>pieten<\/em>. It is\u00a0<em>the\u00a0<\/em>Dutch tradition that is celebrated by literally everyone.<\/p>\n<p>However, in recent years, the\u00a0<em>pietendebat\u00a0<\/em>(<em>pieten\u00a0<\/em>debate) began. White people painting themselves black &#8211; isn&#8217;t that blatantly racist?<\/p>\n<p>One side says that it is not, as racism has never been the intention of\u00a0<em>zwarte piet<\/em>, and the tradition says that\u00a0<em>piet\u00a0<\/em>is black. The real reason for this is not even clear. Some say they actually represent slaves of\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas\u00a0<\/em>that would work for him back in the days. Some have a more innocent explanation: because the\u00a0<em>pieten\u00a0<\/em>deliver all the presents on December 5 by climbing through the chimneys, this theory says that <i>piet<\/i> just got all black because of the\u00a0<em>roet\u00a0<\/em>(soot). And since there are so many chimneys, the soot would not go off anymore. There may be plenty more explanations, but the main point is that nowadays there is no racist\u00a0connotation with\u00a0<em>zwarte piet\u00a0<\/em>among the Dutch.<\/p>\n<p>The other side, however, claims that depicting <i>zwarte piet<\/i> as the dumb, black helper that works for the white\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas\u00a0<\/em>is patronizing and racist. This view came from other countries, raising their eyebrows upon seeing this peculiar Dutch habit. Not surprising, when you see things like this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LurEuv7LjMU\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LurEuv7LjMU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>They claim that this goes way too far, and should be stopped.<\/p>\n<p>The solutions found this year are manifold, and the struggles to get it right for everybody are\u00a0greater than ever. Some\u00a0<em>pietencentrales\u00a0<\/em>(companies that rent out\u00a0<em>pieten<\/em>) offered\u00a0<em>pieten\u00a0<\/em>in different colors: purple, yellow, blue, green&#8230; Whatever you want. But that backfired: most\u00a0<em>pietencentrales\u00a0<\/em>got calls from their customers that wanted a confirmation that their\u00a0<em>pieten\u00a0<\/em>would really be black.<\/p>\n<p>The official, national city where\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas\u00a0<\/em>will be arriving on his boat all the way from Spain this year is Gouda. The municipality also faced this issue: what to do to please everybody? That nobody feels offended, but everybody is still able to celebrate\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas<\/em> as usual? Their idea: two new kinds of\u00a0<em>pieten<\/em>: the\u00a0<em>stroopwafelpiet\u00a0<\/em>(caramel wafer\u00a0<em>piet<\/em>) and the <i>kaaspiet\u00a0<\/i>(cheese piet). Both very Dutch things, and why not paint a\u00a0<em>piet\u00a0<\/em>in the colors and patterns of\u00a0<em>kaas\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>stroopwafels<\/em>? Well&#8230; A survey resulted in 93% saying that this would not solve the\u00a0<em>pietendebat<\/em>. Bad replacement, it seems&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<em>Sinterklaasjournaal<\/em>, the annual TV program made for children around the time of\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas<\/em>, also dealt with this racial issue. In the first episode, watched by a whopping 850 thousand people, showed the normal, black\u00a0<em>pieten.\u00a0<\/em>Then, in the second episode, white\u00a0<em>pieten\u00a0<\/em>are used as helpers for\u00a0<em>Sinterklaas<\/em>, because for some reason many\u00a0<em>pieten\u00a0<\/em>could not come from Spain to the Netherlands. One of them climbed through the chimney and came out with black <i>roet<\/i>. Personally, I think that is the best way to deal with it!<\/p>\n<p>What do you think. Should it be allowed, should it be forbidden? What are your thoughts on the\u00a0<em>Sinterklaasfeest<\/em>?\u00a0<em>Gezellig\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0<em>gruwelijk<\/em>?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3037\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft post-item__attachment\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2014\/11\/Zwarte-Piet.png\" aria-label=\"Zwarte Piet 300x155\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3037\" class=\"wp-image-3037 size-medium\"  alt=\"Zwarte piet\" width=\"300\" height=\"155\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2014\/11\/Zwarte-Piet-300x155.png\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3037\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zwarte piet<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"181\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2014\/11\/Zwarte-Piet-350x181.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2014\/11\/Zwarte-Piet-350x181.png 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2014\/11\/Zwarte-Piet-768x398.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2014\/11\/Zwarte-Piet-1024x531.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2014\/11\/Zwarte-Piet.png 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Sinterklaas, wie kent hem niet? Sinterklaas, Sinterklaas, en natuurlijk zwarte piet!\u00a0 This is how a\u00a0kinderliedje\u00a0goes that is sung around\u00a0Sinterklaas\u00a0time. See it here: Natuurlijk zwarte piet. Of course! He is part of the Dutch\u00a0Sinterklaasfeest\u00a0and annual tradition like nothing else. White Dutch people paint themselves black and dress up as\u00a0zwarte piet, the kind and nice helper of\u00a0Sinterklaas.\u00a0They&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/zwarte-piet-black-pete-still-there\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":3037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[60713,27714],"tags":[117675,358616,3652,3665],"class_list":["post-3036","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-2","category-news-2","tag-het-sinterklaasjournaal","tag-pietendebat","tag-sinterklaas","tag-zwarte-piet"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3038,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036\/revisions\/3038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}