Zwarte Piet is good, the real positive history

The REAL positive history of Zwart Piet (which of course you CAN'T translate in "Black Pete"). If you are really into inclusivity you'll love him and all he stands for from the beginning till now.  This website is to explain what Zwarte Piet is all about. Black Pete doesn't exist!  The wrong ideas about Zwarte Piet is just translating him the wrong way. If you are really interested in the dutch and the dutch language there wouldn't be any controversy about him and our beautiful Sinterklaasfeest. When your name is Peter you don't translate it into Jan in dutch. Simply translating Zwarte Piet in "Black Pete" because you do not master the dutch language is not smart. In The Netherlands we don't talk about white, black, yellow and red when we are talking about people.  We say blank and donker, which means lightskinned and darkskinned in English.  So that is an important difference. When I grew up it was forbidden/not done to say "zwart" (black) to a darkskinned person. So in the Netherlands lets keep it that way.  Together we are not grey. In the Sinterklaasfeest a "Black Pete" never existed. Just Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet. The Netherlands is not America. Let's be happy with that.

For information about clothes, rhymes, poems, why black, etc. Look under the stripes on the left above of this page: the sidebar.

Zwarte Piet is here for a good case, laughing and kind. Zwarte Piet stands for everything good and positive about the Sinterklaasfeest and how it all started. Zwarte Piet changed a little in a positive way with positive backgrounds.

It's important to know because all of a sudden 90 year old people, who survived the war and had people in hiding were disrespectful treated because they had a very lovely festival and Zwarte Piet in it for a very good reason.  It was very strange that people saw Sinterklaas all of a sudden as a normal dutch white man. He is a man of 500 years old!! 

It was strange  white people  were called "wit" instead of blank here in the Netherlands when some people were talking about Zwarte Piet. That means these people didn't know anything about him or the dutch/dutch language because calling someone "wit" is offending here. It's as white as paper, not a skincolour. Blank is skincolour in the Netherlands. Saying people are wit,zwart,geel and rood here is polarization. The government is against this. Zwart and Wit is mostly used to offend people. Instead we say light coloured, dark coloured, darkskinned, etc.(blank, licht getint, donker getint, donker,etc.) We are not becoming grey in the sun. Your skin will become lighter and darker in the sun, standing all in one line together. 

In the Netherlands we are all people, we are colourful but we are not colours.

Everything about Zwarte Piet musn't be seen "black and white". There's more behind Zwarte Piet and what was meant with it now and in history.

Important is also what people wanted and still want to accomplish with it: people and of course little children being nice to eachother and forgiving eachother for our little mistakes.

There's a lot of satire about Zwarte Piet on the internet just like about Trump and Maxima en Willem Alexander, etc. I hope people and of course especially the UN are intelligent enough not to think satire is for real.

It is cultural heritage because Zwarte Piet is as old as the Middle Ages (maybe much older).

Everything about the Sinterklaasfeest was about showing remorse. To give a little attention to your little mistakes and little sins and after that they could be forgiven by your friends and family. 

I hope this website will be an eyeopener and understand why he is so important for many people. For the Dutch it's almost in their genes, that long he's a part of our lives. It's a real celebration for everyone because of the very positive reason, whatever colour your skin is or religion you practise.  I hope the Sinterklaasfeest with our beautiful positive Zwarte Piet will only be uniting.

Zwarte Piet is there for a very good reason. Unregocnizable black (no skincolour black like they use in the English language!). He's from Spain anyway and in history people are Mediterranean there. So it's strange to make your face not unrecognizable. Even if it is only with chimneycolourstripes. Then it should be Mediterranean skincolour and chimneycolour stripes but maybe we shouldn't make it that difficult with our imaginary friend. 

It's a good story so let's keep it this way.