A holiday-themed reminder that, ca. 2014, everything is racist. Via Reuters:
Police arrested 60 people on Saturday as protesters clashed at a traditional Dutch festival for children which critics say is racist, but that many locals defend as harmless fun in the run up to Christmas.
The event re-enacts the arrival of Saint Nicholas, bringing presents for children and helped by his sidekick Black Pete, who is invariably played by a white person with a blackened face.
The celebration is increasingly seen as racist in a country that has become more diverse and multi ethnic since World War Two. But supporters of Black Pete say he is an integral part of Dutch culture that is now under fire from outsiders.
Dutch cities take it in turn to host the start of the annual festival, with Gouda kicking off this year’s carnival. Scuffles soon broke out between protesters demonstrating both for and against the occasion, and police made dozens of arrests.
The origins of “Black Peter,” or Zwarte Piet, in Dutch folklore are something of a mystery, but medieval iconography commonly depicts Saint Nicholas with a tamed devil, who is sometimes black, at his side. Zwarte Piet appears in his present-day iteration in the 1850 children’s book Sint Nikolaas en zijn Knecht (“Saint Nicholas and his Servant”).
Like Othello, he is commonly depicted as a dark-skinned Moor. Of course, that may not last:
In recent years, city authorities have come under pressure to ban or modify the event. This year there was talk of experimenting with orange, yellow or even rainbow Petes.
Via the Associated Press, Saint Nicholas with his aide:
And, enjoying the holidays, a Black Pete lookalike:
Nothing exemplifies the spirit of Christmas quite like getting into fisticuffs over a folk tale.