HONEST TO BLOG

You And Your Racist Friend

update: for the sake of good taste, I removed my former vulgar invectives and linked the example of typcial racist imagery here.

And you thought the Dutch were enlightened. I wish. I find their social attitudes to be largely provincial, bigoted, and xenophobic. This particularly occurred to me when I was invited to a party celebrating the favorite Dutch holiday, eve of the feast of St. Nicholas (5 Dec), or as they call it "Sinterklaas." Traditionally, celebrants place their shoes out and wait for Saint Nick to leave poems and chocolates, assisted by his picaninny slaveboy, "zwarte Piet" (black Pete). Hundreds of white Netherlanders dress up in red-lipped blackface and parade around town handing out candy. I am frankly repulsed and outraged by this widely-accepted, dehumanizing caricature. So, here's a poem for Sinterklaas celebrators:

It was the loveliest party that I ever attended
If anything was broken I'm sure it could be mended
My head is tired from this bobbing and pretending
Listen to some bullet-head and the bullshit that he's saying

Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding

This is where the party ends
I can't stand here listening to you and your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you and your racist friend

--TMBG