Today, the Dutch author Arnon Grunberg wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times – maybe just in the International New York Times, but I’m not sure – where he talks about his love of Sinterklaas and his country’s fear of losing its identity.
He wrote:
The truly disturbing thing is the aggression conjured up by this public debate, the thinly disguised xenophobia that roiled to the surface when attempts were made to make Black Pete less black.
In a world where multiculturalism is becoming the norm, the Netherlands, as well as many other EU member states increasingly feel like they have to artificially alter their cultural mindset to agree with the political correctness of the times.
But the issue isn’t really about appeasing the international community. There are several Dutch citizens who do not come from white ancestry, and whom wearing blackface unquestioningly offends.
Grunberg wrote that many Dutch children, in the days leading up to Sinterklaas, ask whether dark-skinned people in their neighborhood are just Black Petes dressed in normal clothes. It’s juvenile racial profiling.
This stereotyping doesn’t just stop at children. Adults, at an attempted pro-Black Pete rally in The Hague, formed a mob around a dark-skinned woman who was merely an on-looker. The police had to extract her.
As for me, a dark-skinned person living in the Netherlands, I’m off to France to celebrate a toned down version of Sinterklaas: St. Nicholas’s namesake day. Au revoir, Pays-Bas. Maybe you’ll be less controversial next year.