[ SECRET POST #2137 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2137 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 015 secrets from Secret Submission Post #305.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[kallanda_lee]

I never knew how much people were in arms over blackface until Fandom Secrets, really.

But then I'm used to Sinterklaas:

[(Anonymous)]

You see, I wouldn't have bat an eye at this if it weren't for the red lips.
That's just too much of a caricature and that really borders on Blackface.

If they lost the red lips I'd be completely fine with it.

Just like white people dressing up as Chinese people for carneval. All is fine with me except them painting their skin actually yellow (my dad is Chinese).

[kallanda_lee]

My point is that what you "bat an eye at" is culturally determined. I know it looks caricaturist, but I simply have no emotional reaction to it, because it's not really something I considered to be weird until it was mentioned to me quite late in life. I realize now that Americans and some other nationalities do have a kneejerk reaction to this, but to me it simply does not have that connotation.

[(Anonymous)]

It's the struggle of globalization.

In the US, we have a history fraught with debasing a particular group(s) of people - as do other countries with similar pasts. If we didn't have the internet, it wouldn't phase people in other countries. But now we have the interwebz which means that me, in my American moral outrage, can pass judgment on you. You didn't mean the same thing as what I have always believed it to mean, but I'm demanding that you change your cultural taboos to match mine.

As an American, I can never be comfortable with black-face. The truth is, there is a visceral reaction to it inside of me. However, people have got to learn to be less offended when living in the global community. We should dialogue about this stuff instead of screaming "EVIL!" at people :P

[(Anonymous)]

http://dingdingren.blogspot.com/2010/11/arrival-of-sinterklaas.html An American did and came to the conclusion that, while they couldn't get over their cultural aversion to Zwarte Piet and the tradition pretty invariably came from mimicking black Africans, it has no racist connotation to the Dutch.

[nyxelestia]

We should dialogue about this stuff instead of screaming "EVIL!" at people :P

Hence why I started this baby: sj_awareness. :)

[(Anonymous)]

TBQH, your spamming of this thread to publicise your community is getting tiresome.

[(Anonymous)]

As an honest question, do you have any examples of how black Dutch people have reacted to zwarte pietz?

[kallanda_lee]

The plural is Zwarte Pieten :)

There has been some controversy in Holland, especially in recent years. I know a few poc in Holland (mostly of Surinamer descent)who themselves happily participate in the festivities, but of course that's anecdotal.
As other anon in the thread says, globalization does change things. From what I can tell, the issue was mostly brought up by expats or people who immigrated from other countries. It IS quite possible that it will cause the tradition to change over years, but from what I can tell criticism only started happening fairly recently.

I know a couple of years back a few people were actually arrested protesting against Sinterklaas.

This:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ppXN9ipi58 was actually a vox pop done as a result of the arrest. It's in Dutch, sorry. The first guy says it's racist, and that people don't know their colonial history. The other people there are saying they ether don't mind or even that they like it (or their kids like it). In Belgium (where I live), I've heard even less criticism.

If you're looking for someone who spoke out against it, google Quinsy Gario and the movement around him (he's originally from Curacao, though)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry for messing the phrase up -- I should have looked it up more carefully.

Thank you for the well-thought-out response and the link.

[insanenoodlyguy]

This is definitely fucking blackface. They might not have sinister intentions with it, different cultures and all, but that is unquestionably fucking blackface right there.

[(Anonymous)]

kallanda_lee never suggested it wasn't.

[kallanda_lee]

Indeed I didn't. I suggested it doesn't have the same cultural connotations/kneejerk reactions/origins as in the USA.

[(Anonymous)]

Now I'm thinking of that "Six to Eight Black Men" short by David Sedaris. "They used to be his slaves but now they're just good friends ..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbJpRLhaSqs

[kallanda_lee]

I've seen it :)

Fun fact: if you go back to legend, there was only one "Pete" and he wasn't Nicholas' slave.
He was in fact freed from slavery by ole Nick when he was a boy, but chose to stay with him. This is one of the reasons Nicholas is the patron saint of children.

But by now there are of course many versions of the story.