I’ve always fancied a certain similarity between my new home of Rhode Island and my old home, the Netherlands. The founding stories of both certainly emphasize a tolerance that was far ahead of their times: Just as the Netherlands offered refuge to the persecuted pilgrims and Huguenots who would later travel to the Americas, Rhode Island remains inextricably linked to Roger Williams and the “distressed of conscience” who questioned both the validity of colonial charters vis-a-vis native peoples and the intolerant state churches of other colonies. How ironic, then, that it is this little state and my little country that continue to celebrate archaic holidays that are, at the very least, racially and culturally insensitive.
The Netherlands is extremely protective of its Sinterklaas day, a popular children’s holiday and a variation on Santa Claus. This national celebration makes a public spectacle out of minstrelsy, as Sinterklaas’ helpers are not elves but Black Petes — usually white Dutchmen in blackface with golden earrings, Afro wigs, red lips and broken Dutch accents. Since 1975, Rhode Island has been the only state in the United States still to celebrate Victory Day each August to commemorate the U.S. victory in the Pacific theater of World War II. Often referred to as V-J day, it is an official holiday for state employees. Traditions are important to preserve, but when they become conflated with racism, xenophobia or ethnic hatred, they should be unequivocally and immediately abolished.
The Black Pete debate is nothing new, but it grew to unprecedented heights last month when an adviser to the United Nations, University of the West Indies Professor Verene Shepherd, called for an investigation of the custom. Over 2 million Dutch men and women signed a Facebook petition protesting Shepherd’s initiative. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Sinterklaas is not a matter for the government, and that “Black Pete happens to be black, there is nothing I can do about it.” This fallacy casts the holiday as a local, private decision, rather than the national and publicly funded holiday it truly is. The main argument for keeping Black Petes is that they are a tradition, distinctive of Dutch culture, and that they have nothing to do with racism. According to those espousing this line of argument, Black Petes are black because they fell through chimneys full of coal while delivering presents. Obviously, this does very little to explain the lips, the Afro and other racialized characteristics.
But hundreds of the Dutch have seized the debate as a vehicle to air their profoundly racist sentiments. When a popular Dutch singer, Anouk, voiced her support for eradicating the Black Petes from the holiday, she received death threats and was told she “and her own Black Petes” — Anouk has a black partner and several mixed-race children — should go back to their “country of origin.” Each of these comments received several thousand likes on a popular social media network.
In the Hague, dozens of protesters, many of them in blackface, surrounded a dark-skinned Papua woman who was there to call attention to the United Nations’ neglect of atrocities committed in West Papua by Indonesian colonizers. Without even asking why she was there, they pushed her around and yelled racial slurs at her. They assumed that because of the color of her skin, she was there to antagonize them. While the vast majority of Dutch people condemns such racism and prides itself on equality, it is clear that the Black Pete’s existence enables the persistence of racial stereotypes that feed the opinions of this intolerant minority. In addition, the insistence on keeping Petes black points to more a widely-shared racial — if not racist — assumption. “Rainbow Petes,” which were introduced a few years ago to make Sinterklaas more inclusive, failed to charm the masses, and all municipalities voted to return to exclusively black Petes within a few years.
The case of Victory Day is no less interesting but has been discussed at length by Rhode Island Public Radio over the years.
“I don’t think (the Japanese) have any right to tell us they don’t like V-J day because we won the war,” they quoted a veteran as saying. The difficulty here lies in the name especially. There were thousands of civilian casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To coin this a “victory” is insensitive and discriminatory, as it suggests that the lives of the Japanese civilians were somehow worth less than those of others. Remarks like those of the veteran indicate that Victory Day, too, is inextricably linked to notions of national superiority.
The idea that holidays are somehow not governed by rules of common sense or inclusivity because they are supposed to be “fun” is exactly the reason why there are people who think it’s cool to wear Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman duo outfits for Halloween. There are thin lines between tradition and blatant racism and insensitivity. Many practices that seem innocent or part of a national heritage continue to reinforce disparities between various social groups. This is the case in the United States, in the Netherlands and in many other countries.
Black Petes have to go. Victory Day has to go. But this doesn’t mean that Sinterklaas as a celebration of Dutch identity cannot persist. The United States has numerous federal and state holidays to commemorate the sacrifices made for freedom by its servicemen and women. These kinds of holidays form an important part of each country’s national fabric. If we strip away the offensive elements, these celebrations can truly come to represent the entire population.
Suzanne Enzerink GS can be contacted at suzanne_enzerink@brown.edu, and will happily send links to photos of the Dutch protests to anyone who cares to see them.
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