In a year of Black Lives Matter protests, Dutch wrestle (again) with the tradition of Black Pete

As Black Lives Matter protests and social uprisings spread across U.S. cities in the summer, the civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson wrote a personal letter to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte over an annual tradition that many believe to be racist.
Every Dec. 5, people across the Netherlands paint their faces black and don afro wigs to celebrate the arrival of Black Pete, the blackface servant of St. Nicholas who helps to deliver presents.

With conversations about racial justice, systemic racism and anti-Black prejudice gaining fresh impetus worldwide, Jackson took issue with the Dutch leader’s defense of the Black Pete tradition.

“Your Excellency,” he wrote, “as the whole world mourns the brutal murder of George Floyd, followed by the worldwide mass protest demonstrations calling for actions to combat racism, I do not think that it was appropriate for you to explain that you understand better the sufferings of Black people … and that you do not consider Black Pete as racist.”

As scholars who have researched blackface in the U.S., the Netherlands and worldwide, we believe the episode captures the evolving though ambivalent Dutch attitudes to Black Pete, and the need for a larger global reckoning regarding blackface performances in general.

In his letter, Jackson argued that the tradition of Black Pete could not “be separated from the very offensive tradition of blackface” and noted that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. recognized that “there are times when it’s appro