Black Peter is something many of the US posters here have heard about.

He's a bit of a bone of contention in the Netherlands. (And indeed at the UN.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...utch-divisions

They will eventually get rid of him no doubt, as they should. I don't have a general position on these sort of cultural clashes, I think they need to be assessed on their merits. In the case of blackface, it's not some major cultural tradition in European countries or anything, and the historical baggage in some parts of the world is pretty bad. So I do think the norm against it ultimately should be respected. These things take time though and need to be approached with mutual respect. Just parachuting into the Netherlands and being like "omg, your culture is reprehensible, please change it immediately" is offensive as hell.

Blackface resurfaced as a story in the UK recently as some Morris Dancers do it. There was some debate as to whether the origins were racist or not but that is beside the point in my view. It's not vital to their activities and, as you
say, we know it's bad so they should simply not do it anymore.

Browsing the story just now I hadn't heard about David Cameron posing with them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...t-9794704.html

Yeah, the people against the racist caricature are the ones offensive as hell.

"Everyone else just change your culture so it fits with our norms, what's the big deal?" says country also engaged in constant whining about how "happy holidays" is unacceptably radical cultural change.

High time the UK realised this about Morris Dancing.

I hate you for making me Youtube what that is and I want those 90 seconds of my life back.

Lol, well i guess i was wrong. I retract my previous claim

It seems like its one in the same.

Part of the reason I don't find these Black Peter arguments convincing is that you could say the same thing about Southern minstrel acts. I'm sure if you helicoptered into 1920's Alabama and made a big stink about minstrel shows they'd think you were crazy. And should we really be imposing our Yankee cultural values on these people?

Look, I'm sympathetic to the Dutch for a few reasons. It's relatively minor compared to other racist **** Euros do, like throwing bananas at soccer players or whatever. I get that Christmas traditions are special to people and hard to change. Also, yes, I get that USA#1 has it's own ugly cultural relics that we aren't great at dealing with, from the Washington Redskins to Confederate monuments to Donald Trump, so we're not in an ideal position to lecture people.

Having said all that, this is a mostly US-facing webpage with mostly American readers and I don't see any reason why I should mince words here: it's a dumb offensive tradition and they should probably knock it off.

Yet people routinely dress like the opposite sex in American media and it's not considered offensive, why is that? I would bet that if I had asked you yesterday if it were inherently offensive, divorced from this entire conversation around race, you would have said no. You're saying it is now because you don't like the alternative conclusion, that the offensiveness of dressing up as another race is culturally constructed.

I think this is again confusion about where the problem lies. The problem with Southern minstrel shows was not blackface per se, it was that they were designed to belittle and denigrate black people. Some minstrel shows featured real black people, were those just fine and dandy?

Like I said, I agree that it needs to stop eventually, because the associations are painful to a lot of people and reasonably so. But it's something the Netherlands has to come to itself and it's super arrogant to expect them to adopt the norms of another culture overnight.

Imagine if some Euro country marched into the US and said "Right, this Santa Claus character has got to stop immediately, don't you understand that putting on fat suits is inherently disrespectful to overweight people? What the **** is wrong with you?". What do you think would happen? I'm going with the US losing its collective ****ing mind and burning flags of that country in the streets.

I wouldve said its offensive yesterday aswell. The reason it isnt bashed in the media is because gay rights and female rights are given priority over black rights in america. So yes its offensive to see men being championed on tv while being awarded with woman of the year awards while people of color are immediately profiled and systematically attacked. There is more homosexuality at the top of american media than there are african americans.

Thats like saying "the problem with nazis isnt the swastika per se"

Its simple association is enough to warrant removal from anyones day to day activities.

Ya okay, but last I checked, no one here is calling for an Operation Grinch invasion of Dutchistan where we force Kringle's helpers to wash off the blackface and make them say "happy holidays" and play football with an egg-shaped ball. This is some guys on the internet voicing the opinion that blackface is retrograde and stupid.

It sickens me that Americans are invading Dutchland to enforce their delicate racial sensitivities. Let's stand behind the great Dutch patriot who said protesters should be "put to work again as slaves ... work off that lazy sweat, n****r, that’s what you were born for." lol @ the people calling this wonderful tradition racist.

I think the bolded is important, though, to expect the issue to be obvious to others.

The simplest example I can think of right now of someone a person might dress up as to satire them would be Donald Trump. Someone who isn't white wearing makeup and a wig and caricaturing Trump isn't likely to strike many as racially offensive.

At the same time, I have to admit if I flip that around and imagine that there was a black president that is as caricaturable (making up words!) as Trump, a white man wearing the makeup and wig doesn't seem right. Is it because, as gregorio said, "Cultures that your culture have historically colonized/oppressed aren't costumes for your amusement."? Is it because of minstrelsy? Is it because I can't imagine anyone of any race being as absurd as Trump? I'm not sure. But I find it interesting.

Regardless, I don't think it's unreasonable that someone who hasn't seen as much racial divisiveness in their country/culture might not immediately see the issue with "imitating another race down to painting your skin" if it's not being done for reasons of parodying said race.

Interesting questions. The difference is that behaviour is harder to modify because of this:

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/spaz

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spaz

It's a word that people in North America have grown up understanding in a completely different way.

What if most of the opposition to Zwarte Piet comes from the Dutch African community? Are we ready to accept its inoffensiveness when we consider that it originated at a time of Belgian and Dutch colonialism?

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be taking from those links? From your dictionary.com link:

Maybe people don't know that in the US, but so what? They can be told.

I'm on your side here btw, I'm generally against trying to roll back the tide of the evolution of language on the grounds that it is impossible. Argued the same thing when "******ed" was discussed.

Let's recap how this conversation started:

I think my points that blackface is not a big deal in some places in Europe and that Americans freak out when you try to inform them of this have both been well demonstrated. lol at trying to turn this around like I'm saying your opinion on blackface is invalid. I'm not the one insisting there is only one way to view the issue. Is lenC's opinion OK, or is he just wrong?

May not have been the best example?

This derail is some of my best work.

This:

Yes, there is evidence in each link of the word's origin, but the definitions are what people here know and how they are using the words. When people are used to a word meaning one thing all their lives, and you tell them that it has an origin that is quite different, there's something to unlearn. And when the message of it being offensive is only coming from a small number of people, it's all the less likely to become commonly understood.

If someone is going to point out that some phrase or behaviour is offensive to members of some marginalised community there should be some evidence that members of the marginalised community is offended. This allows for regional and cultural differences but serves as a reasonable indicator that people that don't want to offend these communities should refrain from saying or acting in such a way.

I think I speak for many who we're startled to see it in the news as we never encounter it in real life.

My prior extensive knowledge on Morris Dancing came from the documentary 'Dr Who and the Daemons'.

Apologies but from wiki again

Depictions of black people in European folk traditions are always going to be problematic given the history of European colonialism, colonialism and slavery resulted in non white peoples being dehumanised as a means to justify colonialism and slavery and it's unlikely that positive representations would emerge in those folk traditions of the time.

This seems a similar line of reasoning to confederate monuments right?

Bobo, all due respect, but

**** that noise. There are words I grew up with that I understood to mean different things that I no longer use in those ways because if what said words mean now to other people.

This is essentially the “its nbd when grandma still calls black people slaves, she’s from a different time!” argument. It’s not rocket surgery to learn a new meaning for a word, it’s quite possibly the simplest thing I could imagine doing.

One of my biggest pet peeves is people who grew up being taught not to use racial slurs, who chastise older folk that grew up being taught it was okay to use those slurs and still do, that pat themselves on the back for not using those specific slurs but then ball when someone tries to educate them on how something else is now considered offensive. Language doesn’t stop with you. You are no different than the old person in this example, refusing to learn and stop being offensive. (You generally, not you specifically bobo)