Jerry Afriyie

blackface is no fun

As a child in the Netherlands, Jerry Afriyie was confronted with ‘Zwarte Piet’ (Black Pete), the Black servant of Sinterklaas, a Santa Claus-like figure who brings children presents and sweets in December. Zwarte Piet is often played by a white person in blackface, with red lips, golden earrings, and a colourful costume; a goofy character with an exaggerated Surinamese accent, played for laughs.

Afriyie was born in Ghana and grew up in Amsterdam from the age of eleven. As a Black child, he was taunted as a ‘Zwarte Piet’. As an adult in the early 2010s, Afriyie decided to call the Zwarte Piet phenomenon by its name: racism. Now Zwarte Piet has almost disappeared, and most of the Dutch oppose him.

Zwarte Piet’s costume was inspired by the costumes of the black servants and enslaved people who served in the households of rich Europeans from the 17th to the 19th century.

In 2014, 88 percent of the Dutch population didn’t want to change the tradition of Zwarte Piet.

The UN-committee on racism stated in 2015 that the Netherlands needed to change the tradition, because Zwarte Piet is a throw-back to slavery. The prime minister reacted that he didn’t mind what Zwarte Piet looked like, and that he himself had played Zwarte Piet.

Almost every Dutch child grew up with Zwarte Piet. From mid-November until 6 December there is no escape from Zwarte Piet: he visits schools and supermarkets, he appears in street parades and on national television, and in almost all advertisements of toys and candy.

Jerry Afriyie co-founded the human rights organisation Nederland Wordt Beter (The Netherlands Will Get Better) and the campaign ‘Zwarte Piet is Racisme’ (Black Pete is Racism) in 2011, and the action group ‘Kick Out Zwarte Piet’ in 2014 to eliminate the racist elements from the national celebration. Dutch people felt offended by his activism, as they didn’t consider themselves racists. His peaceful protests across the country were met with (police) violence, unjust arrests, personal threats and attacks. But through persistence the public opinion started to shift: people became convinced that this very wide-spread tradition was indeed racist and harmful, and needed to be changed. The national broadcaster banned Zwarte Piet, as did many municipalities, supermarkets and large companies: in many places the character is now no longer black.

THE PRESENT