Prepare for Sinterklaas

Last Night a little girl chased me down, grabbed my hand and shouted “Swarte Piet!”

It was a surreal moment in my life, one that I had been prepped for a few weekends ago when Sinterklaas arrived in Amsterdam after his refreshing annual hiatus in Spain.

Let me back track historically for a moment…

There was this sainted bishop of Mira, Turkey named Saint Nicolaus. He was known for his generosity to children. It is believed that Americans made him into what is known as Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus from the Nordic version Sinterklaas. As time progressed a feast was attributed to him on December 5^th to celebrate his birthday (actually the 6^th but who wants to be such a stickler). He returns a few weeks before his special day to give gifts and make appearances.

Shortly after the tradition first appeared, Sinterklaas’ mystic grew to him championing evil. This triumph was dramatically presented on feast day and men would dress as Sinterklaas and act out his defeat over evil. Evil of course was depicted as - yes you guessed it - a white man in black face. So it became impossible to see one without the other during his tours of the Netherlands. Apparently the work of delivering gifts and keeping track of naughty and nice kids was such a strain to Sinterklaas’ respite in Spain, that his little evil sidekick was morphed into his faithful servant who relieved Sinterklaas of his burdensome life. His sidekick is known as Swarte Piet (Black Pete) who is the predecessor of the elves who work for Santa Claus.

Some decades back when a white man played the role of Swarte Piet, he would put on court jester’s costume, blacken his face, elevate his voice, and take on the demeanor of a hapless child (not making this up people). Swarte Pieten are quite busy going down the chimney to collect the straw children leave in their shoes for Sinterklaas’ horse in exchange for gifts, in addition to keeping track of everyone’s behavior. There was also a time when naughty children were told they would receive a beating with twigs and then taken away in a burlap sack to SinterKlaas’ workshop in Spain. (This may be how Sinterklaas has collected so many Piets).

Today Swarte Pieten (plural) are Sinterklaas’ faithful companions who walk before Sinterklaas’ (who is mounted on a white horse) carrying a burlap sack filled with treats for young children who shout his name. Sometime during the civil rights movement Swarte Piet disappeared but in recent decades has reemerged as the playful chimney sweep (with miraculously clean clothing with a dirtied face) who prepares the way for Sinterklaas and delivers ginger cookies to children on the day they return from Spain in mid-November.

Being at the parade in Amsterdam for Sinterklaas’ arrival was an experience to say the least! Seeing little Dutch children dressed in brightly coloured costumes wearing wigs to cover their blonde curls with coarse black hair was strange. Extreme parents would top this by blackening their child’s face! I think my defense mechanisms kicked in and all I could do was laugh to the point that I could not stop (I could not focus the camera I was laughing so hard). My friends were shocked and embarrassed by the racial overtones but like me did not know what to do with it. What else can you do in the face an indigenous culture norm that rams into your paradigm? Every store you go in has diminutive Swarte Pieten decorating their merchandise and the windows are covered with the blacken faces with red lips and gold hoop earrings that look very much like the performers of the traveling minstrel shows of America in the 1800’s. I do not know where to begin, besides making a joke of the whole thing. (And believe me I did – you can ask Ari Snow about it).

Now back to this moment’s reality….

So knowing all this, when this child ran after me shouting “Swarte Piet,” I froze. How do you tell a smiling six year old cherub-face child that they just insulted you and explain to her the significance of the slight. I asked her where her parents were and she said they were in the overly crowded store (I had a few words in mind for them). So I bent down and told her that I was not a Swarte Piet and not all brown people are Swarte Pieten. She was confused, but excepted this and asked me if I knew where any Swarte Pieten were, I of course told her no, because I was not from her country and there are none where I come from. She shrugged and went off to find her parents.

I am still struggling to figure out what to do with such an experience. It took a night of wrestling just to write about it. Maybe there is a constructive and brilliant answer out there but in that moment all I could come up with was love to this little girl’s innocence while I processing the distain for the reason we met. I doubt she or her parents know the origin of Swarte Piet (no one that my friends and I asked had a clue and were shocked to hear it), so it was not malicious but it was still wrong in my universe (Especially because I have experienced obvious prejudicial treatment in this country as I have in many others including my birthplace). In a world that is shouting relativism above everything, how do you make choices that reflect significance for all mankind at the same time? I guess there are some things that take tremendous thought and foresight to handle. I am willing to enter into it and invite others to do the same.