The Netherlands Just Had Its Annual Christmas Blackface Fight
(WorldNews Netherlands)

This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands It´s not really Christmas until people in the Netherlands start arguing about whether the racist Christmas character Zwarte Piet - Black Pete - is actually racist. The Zwarte Pieten are meant to be Santa`s team of helpers, who - as their name subtly alludes to - are black. His character is celebrated on Sinterklaas (St Nicholas) day - an annual Dutch holiday on the 5th of December, which heavily features white people dressing up as Piet by splashing on blackface. At this year`s celebration, angry pro-Piet supporters set up roadblocks on the streets leading into the small northern Dutch village of Dokkum, to block anti-Piet demonstrators...