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[Another]

"Only pure nordic type people are allowed to help Santa. While we continue to depict devils as black or red skinned."

^^ Now that is racism. The traditional costume of Zwarte Piet may be somewhat overboard but so are many other imaginary persons.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well, I certainly don't think the UN or anybody else should intervene, or ban Black Pete. I'm just saying. Racist as hell.

[scriver]

Yeah. Even if people mean nothing by it, it's still grounded in historical racism. People should show some capability of self-criticism and -evaluation. "Its tradition" is never a good argument to not change if there's reason to.

"Only pure nordic type people are allowed to help Santa. While we continue to depict devils as black or red skinned."

^^ Now that is racism.

And it is ridiculous to claim or even insinuate that that is what anyone is saying.

[lue]

As long as you get an Actual Black Guy™ and not that physically-painful-to-look-at blackface makeup (like you see in that HuffPo article linked earlier), I really don't care. Just because it has racist roots doesn't mean it's invariably a symbol of racism. You could easily turn Zwarte Piet from "racism" to "diversity" with the snap of your fingers.

That's what Another was getting at. Some will inevitably look at such a ban as "apparently they don't like diversity", regardless of the actual history and reasonings. (That's not to say you couldn't have elves traveling with Santa who just so happen to be of African descent, but it won't look good in some circles to get banned the only explicitly black role in most, if not all, Christmas traditions.)

And yes, please, UN, focus more efforts on Syria and things of that nature if you could, thanks.

[Dutchling]

As long as you get an Actual Black Guy™ and not that physically-painful-to-look-at blackface makeup (like you see in that HuffPo article linked earlier), I really don't care. Just because it has racist roots doesn't mean it's invariably a symbol of racism. You could easily turn Zwarte Piet from "racism" to "diversity" with the snap of your fingers.

That would just look weird .

[Sheb]

Especially since Zwarte Pieter is supposed to be black because he crawls through chimney. If anything, it should be more blackface, all over the place and the clothes too.

But seriously, just add some Wit Piet and you'll be good. In Estern france/Sotuhern Belgium, the Zwarte Piet-equivalent (Père Fouettard) can be white for exemple (although I always remmeber him black, but that may just be my school).

[shadenight123]

I think there is such a thing as 'backwards racism' That is, people seeing racism where there isn't one.
Like, you know, if a German hits a jew it's a Nazi uprising rather than just a scuffle over a girl.
Or if an Italian burns down a Gypsy camp it's because Fascism is returning rather than because the italian was a dead drunk bastard.
I mean, they recently killed an Italian in England because 'Italians steal work!' was the motto.
Will there be a racism accusation added to the count of these englishmen? Something tells me it won't...but it should.
Any attack done because of race should be branded racism, never mind if the attacker is English, African, Russian...yet I never hear of such cases. IT's always the white man who's racist, while the 'black man' has to be called 'Dark Skinned' 'Of African Descent' or so on.
You know what? If I call the white man 'white man' then I call the black man 'black man'.
Not because it's racist, but because it's fair.

[Max White]

Shade we are living in an interesting time. Racism is still a thing, but it is widely accepted as bad, and there are a lot of people who themselves aren't actually racist. We haven't really adjusted our mentality to deal with that degree of complexity yet. Humans are pretty bad at dealing with nuance at the best of times, so when somebody does something to somebody else that could or could not be motivated by race, many have trouble with any answer with varying degrees of certainty, and they rush towards the politically safe answer.

[shadenight123]

Yes, but the most optimal solution is to admit that 'Racism' is by itself 'Racist'.
If I hate someone, I hate him. I don't care for his race. I hate him. If the person I hate is a dark skinned man, I will, if we end up insulting one another, call him a 'Nigger' or something similar. Not because of racist inclinations, but because when insulting someone else you hit where it hurts.
You can 'hate' someone because he's a horrible singer for example, but there isn't a worsening of the accuse because of 'Singerism'.

If we are all humans, if we all wish for equality, then 'Racism' has to go. Not merely the problem (people hating others over race) but the actual accusation. Sure, maybe a Nazi lover will try to gas a Jew and act as someone who hates immigrants, but he'll hate them and be accused and go to jail because he did something against the law first and foremost. Either 'Racism' is for everyone, or it's for no one. For it to be used only by a selective brand of the population...that's racist, isn't it?

[Sheb]

But racism is for everyone. You have black racists, white racists, yellow racists? Wher eis your problem?

[Helgoland]

But racism is for everyone. You have black racists, white racists, yellow racists? Wher eis your problem?

Some standards are more strictly applied to some people than to other people. But that's a minor problem - it'll probably have sorted itself out in fifty years, when nobody would even think of acting in a racist way.

[Descan]

From what I understand, there's two "types" of racism, or prejudice, or whatever.

There's the individual, "I hate you because you are black/white/different than me, and therefore are stealing our jobs/women/money/things." The kind that everyone can experience or put out themselves.

Then the more systemic kind. In the West this is usually white-against-everyone, as a black man you don't get hired because the hirer has a first impression of "black = dangerous", even if were you to ask them they'd say "No no! It's only because he doesn't have the right experience!", even if a white guy with the same level of experience were to get hire. You can also get this kind with people who are tattooed, or trans people, or non-conforming in some other way (Try to get a job while wearing a skirt and a beard. )

In other countries, like Japan or China or Saudi Arabia, it would be Japanese-against-everyone instead of white-man-against-everyone. Or Chinese man, or Arabic/Muslim man. Same basic principle, though.

To wit, one is based on hate on an individual scale, one is based on prejudice on a cultural level. We've been dealing with the individual scale with legislation like hate-crime laws or things of that nature (whether they are effective or just worsen the issue, up to you) and the cultural level with hiring practices and reverse-discrimination. But it's much more insidious, because the person doing the hiring or whatever doesn't even realize they're treating the black man different than the white man. So it's hard to get them to fix it.

[scriver]

I think there is such a thing as 'backwards racism' That is, people seeing racism where there isn't one.

There is. This isn't it. This is just people not wanting to see institutionalised racism for what it is because it goes against their image of themselves.

Especially since Zwarte Pieter is supposed to be black because he crawls through chimney. If anything, it should be more blackface, all over the place and the clothes too.

So it's a white person who climbed through a chimney and hot ash on him and therefore he suddenly looks like a early 20th century caricature of an African.

Yeah, totally not racist at all whatsoever.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yeah, it's the earring that is most damning. You could, at an absolute stretch, say it isn't racial if it were just the blackface, but you don't find African-style earrings in dirty chimneys.

[10ebbor10]

On a side note, the UNESCO has nothing to do with this whole trouble. The original letter that started this of was:
a) Not send by the UNESCO
b) Factually incorrect (It was a rejection of a possible submission of Black Pete as cultural world Heritage. Something that is not only impossible by the definition of Cultural Heritage, but there has never been a submission)
c) Send by an organization in order to further their own agenda, something that seems to happen quite a lot these days.

Link in dutch, no relevant article found in English