VICE.com - It’s not really Christmas until people in the Netherlands start arguing about whether the racist Christmas character Zwarte Piet – Black Pete – is actually racist. The Zwarte Pieten are meant to be Santa's team of helpers, who – as their name subtly alludes to – are black. His character is celebrated on Sinterklaas (St Nicholas) day – an annual Dutch holiday on the 5th of December, which heavily features white people dressing up as Piet by splashing on blackface.
At this year's celebration, angry pro-Piet supporters set up roadblocks on the streets leading into the small northern Dutch village of Dokkum, to block anti-Piet demonstrators from protesting the area's Sinterklaas parade. The stand-off was framed as a battle between liberal elites, with their PC, no-to-blackface ways, and defenders of good, old-fashioned Dutch traditions.
A week later, there was another attempt at an anti-Piet demonstration in Dokkum to protest the group being barred from entering the town on Sinterklaas. I travelled to the event with the protesters to speak to both sides and find out why people are still wearing blackface in 2017.
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