1mo ago

merry holidays!

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Dutch guy here. Our racist saint Nicolas "Sinterklaas" with blackface "zwarte Piet" isn't Christmas celebration. He arrives in November and celebrates his birthday on the 5th of December by giving gifts to children.
All aspects from American Christmas celebration were stolen from European traditions. The story from Scandinavia, the character from Germany, the name from the Netherlands. But the Dutch tradition isn't Christmas. It's racist though, not arguing that. I'm fighting it though, because fuck racism. Also the racist part is only recent, back in the old days "zwarte Piet" was a white guy with black soot all over him from climbing through the chimney. Later it became a caricature black person which is so fucked up.
Sadly there's a lot of systematic racism deeply nestled in European cultures and traditions. Slowly we are working to getting rid of them, although there are also many fighting to keep them. But luckily we're making progress.
But if we're pointing fingers here, at least we're not celebrating genocide every year by slaughtering insane amounts of turkeys with Thanksgiving 👀
- They weren't stolen, they're descended from. Because white Americans aren't native to the Americas and brought their traditions with them.
  It was kind of a big thing, history wise?
  
  Because the states were new and full of mixed cultures, they desperately created national holidays to create a more general national feeling among the wide variety of people. Many were hand picked, to create a national culture as the states had none. It's all to create unity and identity.
  
  You mean people in America or the church in Europe? Or is that the joke
  Nvm, I can't read
- Dutch girl here,
  The celebration of "Sinterklaas" leaving started with people from Zeeland celebrating that their children weren't kidnapped by the slaves(most black, also some white) of a white dude who came by ship to bring mandarins.
  
  I don't know where your heard that story, but it's completely false. See This Wikipedia page with a detailed history story. This Wikipedia story is confirmed by many other sources. I haven't found any credible source supporting your claim.

105 comments