I spent one Christmas in Amsterdam with my buddy Dave and, obviously, can’t remember much about our time there. I do remember sitting in both a Hard Rock Cafe and Hooters while getting stoned. And that the local’s holiday tradition included Santa having a little black slave. That didn’t sit well with Dave, since he is Hawaiian and of a darker skin tone himself. I just thought it was refreshing that in Holland they depicted an elf for what he is. Face it, if Santa did any of the work himself he wouldn’t be so fat.

I do have to say that everywhere we went in Amsterdam we were warmly welcomed. For having the town’s holiday decorations dripping with racism, we never experienced any ourselves. Not until we went to Germany. You’d think a country that got their ass handed to them on a platter for that pulling that little stunt once before would be a bit more circumspect in showing how black their collective heart is. Just like you’d think someone would stop and consider cause and effect. Instead they got the experience of a almost 300 lb, 6’ 6” mass of novice snow skiing muscle barreling down the mountainside aiming for whatever Nazi he could use to stop himself from flying off the edge of the cliff. Payback’s a bitch. And there are still some German families trying to figure out what happened to Grandma during that ski trip a few years ago.

So I was a bit surprised this year while Googling Christmas holiday traditions to trash to find a major brouhaha over that little black elf. I mean Germany’s version of the Santa myth basically boils down to an old child molester who tried to woo two poor little prepubescent orphan girls. And Italy’s turns the jolly fat guy in red into a ancient crone dressed in black whose sole purpose in life is to find a little baby to steal to replace her own that she’d probably beat to death. And Mexico’s Christmas Holiday tradition was nothing but a predecessor for the country’s eventual starring role in the illicit drug trade. Comparatively, is a little racism that comes from a time when racism was the norm really all that bad?

The Dutch version of Santa Claus – same old man, same red suit, just not quite as fat as in America – is called Sinterklass, or more affectionately De Sint. A team player, he leaves Christmas and Christmas Eve to the real Santa, and makes his grand appearance on December 5th instead, though he actually arrives sometime during the third week of November. No one seems to know what he does between his initial arrival and his familiar sounding down the chimney and drop off gifts act, though with all the brown cafes in Amsterdam I think I’ve got a pretty good idea. Oh, and he rides a gray horse instead of a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer and another one who’s name I can’t legally use. But the horse doesn’t come into the picture until after his arrival in Holland. Which is by steamship. Because . . . do I really need to point to this brown cafes again? And he doesn’t come from the North Pole either, he comes from Spain. Madrid to be precise. Yup, you got it: brown cafes.

Rather than completely rip off the Santa Claus tale, in The Netherlands kids leave a shoe instead of a stocking in front of the fire place, and while in the U.S. some may leave cookies or some other snacks for Santa, it is a requirement in Holland to leave a carrot or apple or some hay as a bribe if you want anything decent to show up in your shoe the next morning. As long as there are young rug rats in the house, gifts are given on the 5th and De Sint disappears by the following day. Once the kids are old enough to be clued in on the Sinterklass scam, all of the festivities are moved to Christmas Eve and Christmas day because as adults the Dutch know the best way of doing anything is the American way. And besides, you can’t have little black slaves running around the city for an entire month.

Much like the Republicans will tell you that they hate President Obama because he is a socialist born in Kenya and not because he is black, the Dutch will tell you that the little black slave in their Christmas story isn’t black but just dirty from sliding down chimneys. But even FOX fans wouldn’t buy that one ‘cuz he is called Zwarte Piet, which literally means Black Pete. He got his start in the Middle-ages when his name was synonymous with evil. They will also tell you he isn’t a servant, but his modern day carnation comes from a book published in 1845 called Saint Nicholas and his Servant in which he is described as a black helper of African origin. (And take no note of the fact that at that time in history the Dutch were deeply involved in the slave trade, both transporting African slaves to be sold and using slave labor to work coffee and sugar plantations in their colonies.) But at least they dropped the ‘evil’ rep. Kinda, sorta.

Slave, helper, sidekick, or boy toy, Zwarte Piet’s main job is to amuse kids and scatter Sinterklass candies to those who come out to meet De Sint upon his arrival in Holland. More recently they’ve added crowd control to his list of duties. On the night of the big show, he also helps the old guy carry his bag full of candy, which is for the boys and girls who have been nice. The naughty darlings get a roe instead, which is a bundle of birch twigs. Perfect for smacking their nasty little bottoms. And some versions of the Sinterklass tale say the bad kids get abducted and hauled back to Spain in a burlap sack. Which is supposed to scare the brats into behaving though I’d think the threat of being hauled off to France would be more effective.

Now unless you were attending a Tea Party gathering, donning blackface, wearing an afro wig, and painting your lips bright red as holiday revellers in The Netherlands do would not go over well in many parts of the world. Go figure. And the Dutch can’t quite figure out why others object to what is to them just part of their Christmas celebration. But they have made several attempts at being a bit more PC. They tried replacing the traditional black makeup used by those portraying Zwarte Piet with various other shades of color, but traditionalists objected and maybe someone figured out there really is no difference between blackface and mahogany-brown face. In 2006 they even tried going gay by replacing the black Zwarte Piet with a rainbow colored Zwarte Piet, but that one didn’t fly either and so they went back to just pissing off the black folk. On the plus side, they did quit portraying him as a bumbling fool; now his is playful and ‘just’ a bit inattentive. And now the official word — while they still try to determine if he is black or not – is that he is no longer a personal slave. He and De Sint are ‘just good friends’ instead.

Personally, I think they would have done better by claiming Zwarte Piet is a boy toy that De Sint picked up in a third world country. Then everyone would have just smiled knowingly and gone about their holiday season business.

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