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[shadenight123]

Well technically...Wikipedia, to the rescue.
The first origin of Sinterklaas and his helpers can probably be found in the Wild Hunt of Wodan. Riding the white horse Sleipnir he flew through the air as the leader of the Wild Hunt. He was always accompanied by two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn. [4] Those helpers would listen, just like Zwarte Piet, at the chimney - which was just a hole in the roof at that time - to tell Wodan about the good and bad behaviour of the mortals.[5][6] During Christianization, Pope Gregory I argued that conversions were easier if people were allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditions, while claiming that the traditions were in honour of the Christian God; the Saint Nicolas tradition is one of them, converting Wodan to a Christian counterpart.[citation needed]

According to myths dating to the beginning of the 19th century, Saint Nicholas operated by himself or in the companionship of a devil. Having triumphed over evil, it was said that on Saint Nicholas Eve the devil was shackled and made his slave; a devil as a helper of the saint can still be found in the Austrian Saint Nicholas tradition, in the character of Krampus.

Some sources indicate that in Germanic Europe, Zwarte Piet was originally such an enslaved devil, forced to assist his captor, but in the 19th century Netherlands the character emerged in the likeness of a Moor, a servant of Saint Nicholas.[7] Saint Nicholas is said to come from the Byzantine Empire, modern-day Turkey.

The introduction of this new Zwarte Piet was paired with a change in the attitude of the Sinterklaas character, who became quite severe towards bad children himself, and worried teachers and priests due to the depiction of a holy man in this light. Sometime after the introduction of Zwarte Piet as Sinterklaas' servant, both characters adapted a softer character.[8]

Still, the lyrics of older traditional Sinterklaas songs warn that while Sinterklaas and his assistant will leave well-behaved children presents, they will punish those who have been very naughty. For example, they will take bad children and carry these children off in a burlap sack to their homeland of Spain, where, according to legend, Sinterklaas and his helper dwell out of season. These songs and stories also warn that a child who has been only slightly naughty will not get a present, but a "roe", which is a bundle of birch twigs, implying that they could have gotten a birching instead, or they will simply receive a lump of coal instead of gifts.

Basically, 'Pieter' is a shackled devil at first and for the religion of the time he came from Turkey. It is depicted as him being a servant most of the time, but then again, back at the times of its inceptions 'Black Peter' was actually a pair of Ravens coming from an old Norse religion which had their 'Master' bring good gifts to good children.
Hence, in truth, Pieter is a couple of ravens.

But Yes, I admit it did become a racist stereotype over the time (Now that I've read the Wiki) albeit...not in such a key to require considering it a scandal. It's a tradition that states that 'Santa Claus has a black helper'. I don't see anything else in it.

[Digital Hellhound]

Would it help if they just got an actual black guy to play the role?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Pretty sure that makes it worse.

[shadenight123]

Want to know what's really racist?
Here, in Italy, the immigrant workforce has to work taking olives from trees and are paid *only* three euros per wood casket they fill. They wake up at three and work for the entire day. At most, they'll make twenty euros in a day after working for sixteen hours.
And these are the 'regular' immigrants. Not the 'irregular' ones.
Those have an even worse living condition.
It's mistreatment of basic human needs and rights, and it's a job that no Italian would ever do without a better pay and a better situation. Yet they do it all the same and for so little, because they're desperate.
Mind you, If there's one thing I hate is people who feed on others' misery.
I'm not in favor of irregular immigrants on Italy's shores, but this? This goes beyond being for or against. It's inhuman.
The immigrants are really better off staying where they are. Literally.

[10ebbor10]

They were significantly better of where they were. I mean, you could complain a lot of Kaddafi, but "his" Libya was a great place for immigrants. Now it's nothing more than a funnel, leading to even more misery.

[Sergarr]

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 poeple than to other people. But that's a minor problem - it'lll probably have sorted itself out in fifty years, when nobody would even think of acting in a racist way.

I bet 1000 $ this won't happen ever, judging by current internet trends.

[Chaoswizkid]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that racists are just seen as asshats online. You either have people who say racist stuff because they just think it's something insulting to say, and then you have people that are actually really racist. The first group is generated by the actions of the second group. As continual pressure is applied, both groups reduce in numbers, and the first group additionally reduces in number thanks to growing more mature.

[Sheb]

Yeah, but we've been racists for thousands of years, we're not going to stop so soon.

Anyway shadenight: wrong problem, maltreating immigrants is bad, but it's not racism. The asshols that exploit them would just as happily exploit whites or yellows.

[Helgoland]

Yeah, but we've been racists for thousands of years, we're not going to stop so soon.

Meh, we've also had slavery and such* for millennia, but they're pretty much gone, except for a few dirt poor backwards countries. The interesting thing is not that racism is still prevalent, the interesting thing is that it's generally seen as undesirable - inlike, say, eighty years ago. Humanity is making progress at an amazing rate!




*Further examples: Forced marriage, corporal punishment, the death penalty (which is on its way out), direct heritability of political power, child lobor (on its way out, though still present in quite a few countries), genocide, rape as a method of warfare, religious persecution (on its way out), state religions, institutional discrimination by gender and sexual orientation (on its way out), etc etc.

[Sheb]

A lot of those are things you can just legislate away. As long as a majority find one of those bad, it goes. But racism will always go on, because you'll always have racists, even if only a minority.

You're right that racism is seen as undesirable. But it doesn't mean it's getting away, it's just getting subtler: people will say they're okay with arabs, they're just don't like muslims.

[Helgoland]

A lot of those are things you can just legislate away.

But you need popular support...
And sufficiently subtle racism is indistinguishable from no racism at all. The process of subtleization (?) is a sign that racism is dying off.

[Sheb]

Yup, but if 40% of the population is racist, you can't say racism went away the same way the death penalty went away when 40% of people stuill supported it.

[Helgoland]

Yup, but if 40% of the population is racist, you can't say racism went away the same way the death penalty went away when 40% of people stuill supported it.

Still, legislation being enacted is a sign of a change within society, heralding the dying-off of that particular belief. I'm fairly sure that after 1865 there still was significant support for slavery in the South, but today you'd be hard-pressed to find someone actually advocating its return.

[kaijyuu]

I'm fairly sure that after 1865 there still was significant support for slavery in the South, but today you'd be hard-pressed to find someone actually advocating its return.

Not impossible. I can say that for certain now that I actually live in the South.

Those advocating a return to slavery are rather rare, but you just have to look in the right places. You can generally find them waving Confederate flags in their front yard.


(you've got a point and are probably right here, it's just that some things take a looong time to die)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I've never seen anybody arguing for a return to slavery amongst all the racists I've met. Most of them barely have goals at all, just blind hatred.