Posted on 12/08/2014 11:52:29 AM PST by 11th_VA
Edited on 12/08/2014 12:04:33 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Two years ago, I was a freelance reporter on the island of Curacao, a former Dutch colony and a territory once key to the European slave trade in the New World. Within a few months, I began making friends, picking up some Dutch and Papiamento (the local, Creolized language) and absorbing a bit of the culture. Before arriving there, I had been aware of the Dutch holiday tradition of Sinterklaas (something like Santa Claus) and his mischievous helper-slave Zwarte Piet (or Black Pete). I knew that many white Dutch loved to dress up as Zwarte Piet by painting their faces black and their lips bright red and donning curly wigs. I thought I was ready to face this character, who is bumbling, mischievous and dimwitted, but nevertheless kind to children.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
ROFLMA !!! I can't believe what some people complain about - get a life woman ...
Is Attiah Dutch or is she nagging about this just so she can nag.
This person is too emotionally sensitive to be a journalist.
She is just exercising her Black Privilege.
I thought in the enlightened Age of Obama Americans kept their noses out of other countries’ business. I also thought all cultures were equal.
As a side note, I imagine if they gave up dressing in black face and started mutilating girls’ genitals (a la Islam) they would be welcomed back into polite society.
God help her if she ever finds goes to Mardi Gras.
It’d probably drive her to suicide.
And they each pay for their own drinks, too.
The world has gone crazy. Do these idiots complain about the jihadis chopping heads every day? About bearded savages enslaving Blacks TODAY?
More blackface rather than less is what is needed. Indeed, a “Blackface Day” would help restore perspective and a proper social balance.
she’s obsessed with this issue... as well as anything else to do with blacks:
https://twitter.com/karenattiah
If the participants do not associate it with slavery then who is SHE to insist that it is associated with slavery?
If she wants to talk about a completely racist holiday, she ought to look toward Kwa’anza.
From late November to early December, I felt as though I was in a colonial “Twilight Zone.”
Such hyper-emotionalized tripe! I've known Zwarte Piet for almost 60 years, and no one had a sensational reaction as this person posed! That would actually be true for hundreds of years before me, too. Zwarte Piet is all in good fun. People want to play him!
Of course, that's like the union thug putting his hat on our fellow freeper, Physicist, to let all the thugs know whom to beat upon.
HF
I’ll bet this woman would have LOVED my “Phantom of the Oprah” Costume from a few years ago...
“Nothing could have emotionally prepared me...”
Because your intellectual fortitude, so you could understand local traditions and customs, never developed past the infant stage.
You will always find the “emotions” you live by a poor substitute, and will let you down every time.
Huh. She never bothered to find out that Black Pete is a chimney sweep covered in soot.
I couldn't help wondering what the reaction would be if a couple of white comedians made a movie called Black Chicks in which they dressed up in black face.
Wait a minute! This is in the Netherlands. Are we now to start policing the Netherlands?
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