Or, most accurate: blackface Pete. The controversy surrounding this character from a Dutch holiday tradition is… volatile to say the least? I grew up with him/her, as tens of millions of other Dutch people over the centuries have. Him/her being the colored helper of our version of Santa Claus. And make no mistake, this character was very much conceived of to be feared, IF you’d been a bad boy, or girl during the year, he would find you and and put you in his burlap sack to take back to Spain… Childhood nightmares, right there. Over the course of the 20th century, though, the whole punishment of bad children part got watered down to not getting candy. What remained were untold amounts of happy childhood memories about family, and candy, presents, and being together over the holidays. That Sint Nicholas was your uncle in a costume + fake beard and black Pete your aunt, in black face, yes, would only become apparent at about the age of…, for me…, 7? … Yeah. Nice memories. Sorry, but they were. And that right there is what’s been fucking with an entire nation’s adult minds the last couple of decades. Since people rightfully started to speak up against it. I myself didn’t realize until late. So, so late, taking into consideration that only a few of you could have had a more progressive, politically left wing upbringing than I did? My very first officially paid gig as a poet was as black Pete during the holidays, 20 years ago, to write short, rhyming poems (another Dutch holiday tradition) for employees of a national bank during their lunchbreak. Again, didn’t occur to me there might be something wrong with it. It just didn’t.

It does now, though. Times change. Whether (still a lot of) Dutch adults want them to, or not. And all you angry and loud people out there, violently protesting against this much needed specific change, please don’t come to me with the bullshit reason you are fighting to keep blackface Pete around ‘for the kids’, okay? I get that it feels like they’re taking your holiday memories away, tainting them, which sucks, I mean, I’m still getting to terms with that myself, yeah, but ‘the kids’ don’t give a fuck if Pete is black, or green, or blue? All THEY want is the candy and the presents. I know I did. And realizing something you do is hurtful to others, however slowly, and then decide to change your way in order to make this a Dutch holiday for EVERYONE to enjoy, isn’t that what makes US the fucking adults to begin with?

Benne.