Down With Zwarte Piet

For children who celebrate Sinterklaas, every holiday season is full of excitement.

For some adults it triggers a racial debate.

Sinterklaas is an annual celebration in the Netherlands and the Caribbean. It is also celebrated by Canadians of Dutch and other European heritage.

Much like Christmas, Saint Nicholas brings well-behaving children presents. Instead of getting coal, if the children misbehave Saint Nicholas’ companion Zwarte Piet, also known as Black Pete, will take the children, beat them with a bundle of sticks, put them in a bag and bring them to Spain. Sinterklaas parades are most notably different from the Santa Claus parade due to the presence of blackface.

People dressing up as Zwarte Piets will traditionally wear large wigs, red lipstick, hoop earrings and paint their faces black. Many people around the world have been advocating for the removal of the blackface element and some places in Canada have compromised by having the Piets use ash on their faces to give the appearance of a chimney sweeper.

“There’s no sense in getting anyone upset,” said Martin van Denzen, president of Toronto’s Dutch-Canadian Association who plays Saint Nicholas in the parties thrown in Toronto. Van Denzen said there was backlash in removing the black faces three years ago.

“We decided to have Chimney Piets instead of Zwarte Piets. We did not want to embarrass our sponsor who has members from all walks of life,” said van Denzen. Van Denzen said the children have noticed the Piets no longer have completely black faces but does not think they care.

“I tell them it is because the chimneys are much cleaner because of the use of gas instead of coal.”

A United Nations committee on the elimination of racial discrimination issued a report last year that said Zwarte Piet portrays a negative stereotype of people of African descent as “a vestige of slavery.”

Lennii Razman, a radio host in Amsterdam who frequently visits Windsor, grew up in Curacao and said he grew up believing in Saint Nicholas and Zwarte Piet.

“I grew up with that as reality, just as kids here are raised with Santa,” said Razman, who believes the issues have been raised by a push from the west and from political parties that have something to gain from bringing up the issues of Sinterklaas.

“There were years that they did green faces and blue faces but they quickly went back to blackface,” said Razman. “It wasn’t racist until people made it racist. Hopefully this conversation dies in the next 10 years.”

Although the character has been changed in Canada and officials are proposing bans in Europe, many see Zwarte Piet as a part of their tradition and are still using blackface in this year’s celebrations.