Protest against Dutch blackface holiday tradition

The Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus has arrived in the Netherlands to the delight of thousands of children. But some adults protested vigorously against one element of the beloved tradition they find racist: his servant in blackface makeup, Black Pete.
In the annual Dutch Sinterklaas festival, St Nicholas arrives by steamboat in mid-November and spends a month in the country with dozens of the Petes, clown-like figures who leave cookies, chocolate and other treats for children. The affair ends in a night of gift-giving on December 5.
Protesters say the Petes servants who wear blackface makeup, red lipstick and frizzy "Afro" wigs - are blatant racist caricatures and should be banned.

But in a country where 90 per cent of the people have European ancestry, a large majority feels there is no racial insult intended by Black Pete. They say he's a positive figure of fun and that the dissent is a sign of political correctness gone overboard.
The debate over the figure has gone on for years, but it is now electrifying nd polarising the Netherlands as never before.
"The world is watching, and the Netherlands has been found wanting," anti-Pete protester Quinsy Gario told a group of about 300 supporters in Amsterdam, most of whom were black.

Gario, a black artist who has emerged as the public face of the anti-Pete movement, has been subjected to unprintable insults and death threats for speaking out against the tradition. But at yesterday's protest he had trouble at times being heard over supporters chanting his name.

He said the growing support underlines the change the national debate over Black Pete has recently undergone. Two years ago Gario was thrown face down on the concrete by police and dragged away for daring to merely wear a T-shirt with the text "Black Pete is Racism" near the place where Sinterklaas was due to arrive.
The debate exploded in national media this year after it emerged that UN cultural experts were examining whether the tradition is racist.
Verene Shepherd, head of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, said on Dutch TV she "does not understand why it is that people in the Netherlands cannot see that this is a throwback to slavery, and that in the 21st century this practice should stop.