Black Lives Matter has come for Zwarte Piet.
The controversial Dutch tradition — in which children and adults dress up in blackface during the December holiday of Sinterklaas — was one of the subjects of a meeting between Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and a group of anti-racism activists Wednesday.
The meeting, which included members of the group Kick Out Zwarte Piet, took place at a time in which prejudice against minority groups in European countries has come under heightened scrutiny, and after Rutte himself declared he would no longer defend the holiday tradition as he had in the past.
“Discrimination is the worst thing that can happen to you,” Rutte told journalists after what he described as a “very good” meeting.
Critics have pointed for years at Zwarte Piet — or Black Pete — as a racist relic of the country’s colonial past. The character represents Sinterklaas’ (also known as St. Nicholas) dark-skinned helper, and the costume often includes red lips and a dark corkscrew-curl wig.
It’s only recently that their arguments have gotten much traction. A June poll found that 47 percent of Dutch people support the tradition, down from 59 percent in 2019. In 2011, only 7 percent of respondents wanted it to change.
Bigger cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam banned the character from yearly parades in 2017 and 2019, having introduced an alternative for Zwarte Piet, called Roetpiet (Soot Pete, whose face is only streaked with soot), without the blackface features.
Rutte defended the tradition in 2014, arguing that “Black Pete is black, and I cannot change that because his name is Black Pete.”
In June, however, he told MPs during a debate that his attitude had undergone “major changes” after speaking with people with “a darker skin color” and young children who told him, “I feel incredibly discriminated against.”
Rutte said he wouldn’t ban the practice, but he believed it “is changing over time, under pressure from the societal debate.” He added that in a few years “you will hardly see any more Black Petes.”
Supporters of Black Pete, including far-right politician Geert Wilders, maintain that it’s a harmless children’s tradition that’s not racist.
Wilders tweeted after Rutte’s comments in June: “We have a prime minister who now stands for nothing. The [Freedom Party] PVV holds on to national traditions well, for us Zwarte Piet will forever remain black!”
As the political debate bubbles onward, shops and social media companies have taken matters into their own hands and are taking references of Black Pete off their platforms. Leading online retailer Bol.com in August banned products that include Black Pete, while Facebook and Instagram started last month to take down any images of people wearing blackface, including those dressed up as Black Pete.
Ahead of the meeting with Rutte, Kick Out Zwarte Piet said in a statement that the prime minister had all too often “entered into discussions with representatives of action groups without it leading to concrete results.”
But afterward, spokesperson Elvin Rigters said he was “hopeful” that the government would take stronger action against racism.
The Netherlands is one of several European countries grappling with a long-standing tradition of blackface. Anti-racism campaigners in neighboring Belgium have also called for an end to the tradition of blackface during festivals and carnivals.