Khari Johnson

The True Story of Santa: Sinter Klaus and his minstrel show slave

In 2005 I was studying journalism in Utrecht, a city about an hour from Amsterdam. Free thinking, free love and legal weed just like the San Francisco I left to go there.  The Netherlands is widely accepted as one of the most progressive nations in the world today.

Undeniable in a country with an international court to try war criminals, and legal prostitution  Then there’s that jerk Sinter Klaus. America’s Santa comes from the Dutch version and that guys nuts. Sinter Klaus is a saint from Turkey (not a hugely popular people in western Europe).

As I understand it, the Turkish saint lives in Spain. Every December 5 Sinter Klaus and his “servant” Swarte Piet or black Pete get on a boat and come to Holland. Black servants on a boat? That’s slavery.

And the kicker: people paint themselves black and put on intensely red lipstick, exactly like minstrel shows, the most stereotypical depiction of Africans.

If you’ve been good, Pete climbs down your chimney and puts candy and presents in your shoes. If you’ve been bad, Swarte Piet will put you in a burlap bag and carries you back to Spain.

Yeah… I had no idea either until I saw people walking around painted up during the holidays or dolls in shop windows and department stores. Below are pictures I took during a parade through the streets of Utrecht.

Sinter Klaus: Dutch Santa and black face – Images by Khari Johnson

Here are some of the twisted originals.

“Nigger minstel” entertainment shows have been played in London halls for more than a hundred years and shows like The Black and White Minstrel Show were on the BBC in the late 1950s to enjoy more than a decade of success.

Saint Nicholas was born in Turkey in 300 AD. He’s the patron saint of children, sailors, virgins and thieves. Dutch settlers brought the tradition to America and somewhere along the way he moved from Spain to the North Pole, his slaves were turned in for elves, he gained a grip of weight and turned in the ship for a sled and nine reindeer.

The version of Santa we know today gets his start in the American northeast in the 1800s with the cartoons of Thomas Nast and Clement Moore’s poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

Some Dutch folks would try and explain that it wasn’t the intent of the holiday to offend and black folks I met didn’t really know what to say. Some angry but most shrugged it off. Blackface in mass is offensive in any context and it really ruined my perception of a people considered so forward thinking.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 27th, 2008 at 12:16 am and is filed under All Blog Posts, Top Blog Posts and tagged with blackface, buffoonery, dutch, holland, menstrul show, santa claus, sinter klaus, utrecht. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.