chirasul posted:
my only advice is to BE CAREFUL posting about holiday traditions around europeans. you'll post something casual like "anyone else watch the old Grinch movie every year? what a classic" and a european will appear as if summoned and say some shit like "funny how USAmericans always CONVENIENTLY forget that Not Everyone On Earth is from The USA…….. no of COURSE we dont watch 'the grunch' or whatever the fuck that is…. our tradition is to attend a community showing of Glummdorf the Racial Stereotype"

themainspoon replies with screenshots of several tumblr tags and comments:

riseupriseupandcomealong:
my mom’s (american) class tried doing a language exchange thing w a sister school in spain and they decided to send each other boxes of gifts for christmas. the spanish class made remarks about oh christmas in the usa is so commercialized we have ~real traditions~ here and then my mom opened a box full of blackface dolls and blackface doll ornaments and blackface clothespins in front of her students

raygender:
Did once have a Dutch woman vehemently defend the Festive Christmas Blackface by repeating "it's different in Europe” with increasing desperation until she was crying. Literally all anybody else present did was just like, calmly say they were uncomfortable with the practice and not change her mind when she wailed about it.

monkey-mulch:
you bring up rudolph the red nosed reindeer and they bring out Skimbo the filthy redskin and im barely even joking about that they actually had this thing called indian plays in both soviet countries and germany

themainspoon:
European children waiting patiently on Hatemas Eve for Racism Claus to slur down the chimney and segregate all of their presents by colour.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 82 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Minor correction: racist blackface black Pete isn't a Christmas tradition. Also, we've had a big national talk about it, and now the only people who actually do blackface are the actual racists and the rest of us hate them.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

On the Three Magi Day, we see lots of children playing them and caroling in an official charity event. Yes, Balthasar often has dark makeup to more closely match his historical depiction and it's not racist. (I have talked to the single Black person in my town and they don't mind.) We just can't ship enough real Blacks in to play the third of the Magi for this one day. And yes, the Czech song is 50% basically "- Why are you black?" "- It's the sun."

Black people are a bit of a curiosity much like in the Middle Ages, and the attitude hasn't changed much. It's only people in Prague who are indifferent (except they will default to English), people outside Prague are like "what brought you here?" "oh, interesting". The real racism is against the Romani and Muslims: most people will think "this guy is here to steal stuff / blow something up" but in Prague they will keep it to themselves.

Edit: Looks like this is unrelated to "Black Pete", we don't have that here

[–] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah it's Sinterklaas day on the 6th, right?

One of my Dutch coworkers always brought in chocolates. He said that once at Philips he played one of Pieter's countrymen for the company event (yes in full makeup).

That was a while ago tho...

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's on December 5th.

As a Dutch person who grew up with this tradition, the tradition doesn't have all the same racist connotations that historical blackface does. "Zwarte Piet" isn't put in a bad light but as an approachable friend who brings children gifts. I personally never experienced him as a negative stereotype in any way. There's been plenty of attempts to tie his origins to slavery or denigrating racist stereotypes, but historians just don't really find conclusive evidence for that. The reason seems to be more like "just cause" rather than some racist reasoning. He just sort of "popped up", people liked the character so he stuck around.

Nonetheless, some people are uncomfortable with it. And I don't think changing the colour of his skin should matter all that much. The story told to kids was that he's only black due to all the chimney soot (which he climbs through to deliver presents), but a couple years the national broadcaster had a story (there's a sort of "Sinterklaas News" programme for kids with a new exciting story each year for why this time maybe you won't get presents but at the last moment everything works out anyway) where the boat that Sinterklaas and the Pieten take from Spain to the Netherlands sailed through a rainbow, so now all the Pieten have all kinds of different rainbow colours instead of black. They ditched some of the other stereotypical stuff (like the bright red lips and earrings) quietly because kids don't notice nor care about that.

I don't agree that celebrating with Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) makes someone a racist. It's an old tradition people were born into, it's just normal to them and people certainly don't typically celebrate with Zwarte Piet in order to be negative towards people of colour in any way. Hell, the Netherlands is fairly well known for being tolerant.

I do however agree that if someone asks to change it because it's uncomfortable, that getting angry about it and deliberately not changing it because of "muh traditions" certainly does seem quite racist. Piet being black is just a detail, it's not part of the core of the tradition. Like, are these people in the pocket of "big black makeup" or something? Just make them all kinds of colours, looks a lot more cheerful too imo. Thankfully the country is moving away from him being black so hopefully in the future the debate can be laid to rest.

[–] tfw_no_toiletpaper@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Zwarte Piet in itself is not that bad of a story for children, but you could just use ash as makeup to suggest the scenario instead of whatever this abomination is

Black curly wig, obvious blackface, the golden hoop earrings 😭... Zwarte Piet has been used as a racial stereotype since the late 19th century - it only got worse during the 20th century - even if its origins were originally different and imo needs to be changed (as has been tried and partially succeeded)

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 9 points 1 week ago

Yeh his origins are all over the place and combine in a pretty terrible way. Changing it is for the better.

Sinterklaas supposedly lives in Spain, and some origins suggest Piet is modelled off of Moorish slaves there. But the outfit doesn't match; it's based on traditional Moorish outfits as they wore in Venice, and those Moors were free. The bright colours are also reminiscent of the southern Dutch as well as the Venetian carnival.

Decades ago, Piet would announce himself with the clanking of chains. That makes people think of slavery, but they're not chains as used to bind slaves. Rather, it appears to be coming from the German Krampus, which is more of a boogeyman that scares kids. Piet then changed to make him a friendly and non-scary alternative to Krampus.

Piet has always been described as a "knecht", which some people interpret as "slave" but that's a bad translation of the world. A knecht is just someone who helps with some task, and who does just get paid for it like with any other job. A farmhand for example could be a type of knecht, and they aren't slaves either.

Combined together, it's the perfect cocktail of "it looks terrible, but does seem coincidental". Refusing to change it because of "tradition" when people who are uncomfortable kindly ask to do so, that does appear to be the most racist thing about him.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 50 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Dutch guy here. Our racist saint Nicolas "Sinterklaas" with blackface "zwarte Piet" isn't Christmas celebration. He arrives in November and celebrates his birthday on the 5th of December by giving gifts to children.

All aspects from American Christmas celebration were stolen from European traditions. The story from Scandinavia, the character from Germany, the name from the Netherlands. But the Dutch tradition isn't Christmas. It's racist though, not arguing that. I'm fighting it though, because fuck racism. Also the racist part is only recent, back in the old days "zwarte Piet" was a white guy with black soot all over him from climbing through the chimney. Later it became a caricature black person which is so fucked up.

Sadly there's a lot of systematic racism deeply nestled in European cultures and traditions. Slowly we are working to getting rid of them, although there are also many fighting to keep them. But luckily we're making progress.

But if we're pointing fingers here, at least we're not celebrating genocide every year by slaughtering insane amounts of turkeys with Thanksgiving 👀

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 37 points 1 week ago (2 children)

They weren't stolen, they're descended from. Because white Americans aren't native to the Americas and brought their traditions with them.

It was kind of a big thing, history wise?

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 38 points 1 week ago (2 children)

nervously puts his Lumumba away

[–] odium@programming.dev 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

for those who don't know: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumumba_(drink)

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’m an immigrant in Germany who thought that was just a normal word for spiked hot cocoa 😬

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 10 points 1 week ago

You got that in common with most native Germans until maybe a few years ago.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 37 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

you bring up rudolph the red nosed reindeer and they bring out Skimbo the filthy redskin and im barely even joking about that they actually had this thing called indian plays in both soviet countries and germany

IDK about the soviet union, but "indian plays" are not a (common) christmas tradition in Germany. I've never even heard of those.

@OP thanks for adding the transcription.

[–] manicdave@feddit.uk 33 points 1 week ago (16 children)

Which European country was it that added a loophole to their constitution to allow slavery as punishment then manipulated their legal system to lock a third of black men up again? I forget.

[–] megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

France.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

Now now, The French Foreign Legion isn't slavery. It will just make you wish for nuclear winter.

[–] JackRiddle@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can we not try to avoid introspection into our own racism by talking about someone else's racism please?

Yes, this is a fucked up thing. Why do you specifically bring it up under a post about European racism tho?

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (14 replies)

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The war on Christmas isn't real but I wish it was

[–] exploitedamerican@lemm.ee 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Lets nuke the shit out of the shitty parts but keep the decorated live tree, pretty lights, egg nog, giving poor people and or family members things they cant normally afford and radicalizing our younger family members to be anarchistic leftists over ham or turkey or Chinese food while your older relatives try to push them as far right as possible and complain about everything that comes out of your mouth. You know the good parts of Christmas.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 24 points 1 week ago (4 children)

My Christmas tradition has the Krampus. He's both not racist and a terrifying monster. I'd call that a holiday tradition jackpot.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 1 week ago

they actually had this thing called indian plays in both soviet countries and germany

Americans are so racist they have to fabricate nonexistent racist stuff elsewhere to feel better about their own racism. Impressive.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 21 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Germany literally has a children's game called "Who's Afraid of the Black Man"

I don't wanna hear about Racism being a "uniquely American problem"

Cause it very clearly is not.

School shootings and medical debt however ARE "uniquely American problems"

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

That's based on the black death, aka. the plague, hence the rules of the game.

We have enough rascist shit in our culture but this one isn't :)

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 13 points 1 week ago

I actually didnt knew that.Thanks. :)

[–] Don_alForno@feddit.org 13 points 1 week ago

Looking back as an adult the origin is clearly racist. But since I sung that in kindergarden myself: We didn't associate "black man" with a person of colour. When I was 4, I was imagining some creep in a black trenchcoat.

[–] djsoren19@yiffit.net 11 points 1 week ago

It's seen as an American problem because America is one of the most multicultural countries in the world. It's not surprising you don't hear about racism much in countries with 80%+ white populations

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I loved grinch back in the nineties.

Nirvana and all that.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] LongMember69@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

OP: posts a meme about weird and racist European holiday traditions and how Europeans will appear to defend them

Europeans ITT:

well actually it’s not a Christmas tradition it’s from November

yeah uh, and it’s not actually blackface because we decided it’s soot and ash even though it was and still is blackface

ok we might have people here that like the blackface but they live all the way on the other side of the country which is like a whole 10 minutes away so it doesn’t count

uhhhh you Americans wouldn’t understand with your newer, watered-down, holiday traditions that are stolen from elsewhere

it’s not racist it’s cultural and you Americans would understand if you could introspect about your culture

[–] nicknonya@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 week ago

fucking Thank You.

whenever i post something like this i always hope people here would be at least marginally more willing to engage with them than the average person seeing how left-leaning they tend to be and i'm always proven wrong

logically i know they're a minority, most people don't even comment, but still.
never expected to see someone say "i don't care if it's racist it's my culture so It Stays" here. like do you not hear yourself??

[–] tb_@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

We have been transitioning to "soot" smears rather than full-on blackface and red lipstick, which has been very welcome. Yet some people hate it vehemently, "it's a festival for the children, they don't understand the racist implications so we don't need to change it!" (the latter part isn't generally spoken out loud).

[–] teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 week ago (5 children)

in the Netherlands we have a guy named Saint Nicholas that gave money to prostitudes and other poor people to save them, who then decided to join him. The best translation for their names i have is 'squires' but not really. Because they go down our chimneys to deliver gifts it's tradition for them to have ash on their face, which some are calling blackface.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 22 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Roetveegpiet seems to only have come about because of the blackface issue with Zvarte Piet, which was originally portrayed as a moor said to be a literal slave to Sinterklaas. Sooty Piet only got more popular than Black Piet in 2021., going from polls.

load more comments (5 replies)

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet

Sounds like you're referring to the recent (2021) version, "Sooty Pete" but Black Pete has a couple hundred years on him.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Because they go down our chimneys to deliver gifts it's tradition for them to have ash on their face, which some are calling blackface.

This was made up later because people were too uncomfortable with it, this was not the original story.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 12 points 1 week ago

Dutch Wikipedia has the first references to blackness from soot pinned to an image from the 1870s:

"Zwarte Piet had in deze tijd nog niet zijn huidige naam; zo is hij op een centsprent uit 1870 afgebeeld als een schoorsteenveger met de naam Zwartjan." https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet#%3A%7E%3Atext=Zwarte+Piet+had+in+deze+tijd+nog+niet+zijn+huidige+naam%3B+zo+is+hij+op+een+centsprent+uit+1870+afgebeeld+als+een+schoorsteenveger+met+de+naam+Zwartjan.

Translates to: "Black Pete did not have his current name yet, he was depicted on an image from the 1870s as a chimney sweeper named "Black Jan" (Jan is a stereotypically Dutch name, one of the most common Dutch first names. Pete, or Piet in Dutch, is also a very common Dutch name).

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] Gork@lemm.ee 13 points 1 week ago

When do I arm my strategic bomber for the War on Christmas? 🛫💣🎄🎇

[–] Samsy@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

In some parts of Germany, the gifts are coming from the "Christ's child" which is an angel, a child, Jesus as a kid, all of them? I am from Germany, and I still don't know.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] Mr_Blott@feddit.uk 13 points 1 week ago

Sorry but the comment about the films is horseshit

2024 will mark about two decades of sitting through Home Alone and Die Hard, and before that it was two decades of Shitty Shitty Bang Bang (thanks autocorrect 😂) and The Wizard of Oz

Quite looking forward to the new Wallace and Gromit though!

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Americans are incapable of not looking at everything through the lens of their own cultural bias. It's not unique for them, but boy do they excel at it

load more comments