US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson writes to Dutch PM asking to ban ‘racist Black Pete’
- The debate about Black Pete has gained momentum in recent weeks as tens of thousands of anti-racism demonstrators protested the death of George Floyd
US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has written Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte asking him to end the use of the pre-Christmas character “Black Pete,” which Jackson called a racist relic of colonialism.
“I am writing to urge you to heed your moral conscience and do what you believe and know to be right,” Jackson wrote to Rutte in a letter sent via the Dutch Embassy in Washington that was received in The Hague on Thursday.
The debate about Black Pete has gained momentum in the Netherlands in recent weeks as tens of thousands of anti-racism demonstrators protested the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and discrimination at home.
In the Dutch tradition, St. Nicholas arrives on Dec. 5 bringing gifts to children accompanied by numerous “Petes”, clownish servants usually portrayed by white people in black face paint wearing frizzy wigs and red lipstick.
Rutte said in 2013 that “Black Pete is just black and I can’t do much about that”. But this month, he said his attitude had undergone “great changes” after meeting people, including “small children, who said: ‘I feel terribly discriminated (against) because Pete is black’.”