chirasul posted:
my only advice is to BE CAREFUL posting about holiday traditions around europeans. you'll post something casual like "anyone else watch the old Grinch movie every year? what a classic" and a european will appear as if summoned and say some shit like "funny how USAmericans always CONVENIENTLY forget that Not Everyone On Earth is from The USA…….. no of COURSE we dont watch 'the grunch' or whatever the fuck that is…. our tradition is to attend a community showing of Glummdorf the Racial Stereotype"

themainspoon replies with screenshots of several tumblr tags and comments:

riseupriseupandcomealong:
my mom’s (american) class tried doing a language exchange thing w a sister school in spain and they decided to send each other boxes of gifts for christmas. the spanish class made remarks about oh christmas in the usa is so commercialized we have ~real traditions~ here and then my mom opened a box full of blackface dolls and blackface doll ornaments and blackface clothespins in front of her students

raygender:
Did once have a Dutch woman vehemently defend the Festive Christmas Blackface by repeating "it's different in Europe” with increasing desperation until she was crying. Literally all anybody else present did was just like, calmly say they were uncomfortable with the practice and not change her mind when she wailed about it.

monkey-mulch:
you bring up rudolph the red nosed reindeer and they bring out Skimbo the filthy redskin and im barely even joking about that they actually had this thing called indian plays in both soviet countries and germany

themainspoon:
European children waiting patiently on Hatemas Eve for Racism Claus to slur down the chimney and segregate all of their presents by colour.

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[–] LongMember69 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

OP: posts a meme about weird and racist European holiday traditions and how Europeans will appear to defend them

Europeans ITT:

well actually it’s not a Christmas tradition it’s from November

yeah uh, and it’s not actually blackface because we decided it’s soot and ash even though it was and still is blackface

ok we might have people here that like the blackface but they live all the way on the other side of the country which is like a whole 10 minutes away so it doesn’t count

uhhhh you Americans wouldn’t understand with your newer, watered-down, holiday traditions that are stolen from elsewhere

it’s not racist it’s cultural and you Americans would understand if you could introspect about your culture

[–] LordWiggle 36 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

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 👀

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] LordWiggle 6 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

You're not exactly making progress if the progress is slowly removing a few traditions from being practiced in the open, while losing voters who go to the right wing parties.

That's what I'm seeing, also here in Norway.

You're temporarily gaining ground, but with no long term plan. You're sacrificing women's rights and gay rights in a suicide run for inoffensive perfection.

[–] LordWiggle 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

The general public is much more open towards LGBTQ+, equality is improving, there are just some extremists fighting to keep racism intact but the general politically right voters are not as much racist and against equality, but more upset about the previous government we had and about the vast amount of refugees which is a giant mess because the previous government basically did nothing to provide sufficient preperstions for it. There is still a lot of progress, even though the government is right wing at the moment. I don't understand why you say we sacrifice women's rights and gay rights. That may be so in the US, not over here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

"there are just some extremists"

We lost the biggest fucking election. The US is a democracy, and whether it acts like it or not it's still true that a majority voted for discrimination, prosecution, and the most convincing antichrist we could've gotten. They've absolutely lost women's and gay rights.

You're deluded if you still can't accept that you're not dealing with a minority of extremists. The majority is far less tolerant and accepting than you understand, who takes facades at face value.

You'd start to get back to reality if you just accept the simple fact that you've lost people. A LOT of people.

Your political messaging has been completely naive and incompetent.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

Germany literally has a children's game called "Who's Afraid of the Black Man"

I don't wanna hear about Racism being a "uniquely American problem"

Cause it very clearly is not.

School shootings and medical debt however ARE "uniquely American problems"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 28 minutes ago

It's seen as an American problem because America is one of the most multicultural countries in the world. It's not surprising you don't hear about racism much in countries with 80%+ white populations

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

That's based on the black death, aka. the plague, hence the rules of the game.

We have enough rascist shit in our culture but this one isn't :)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 hours ago

I actually didnt knew that.Thanks. :)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago

Looking back as an adult the origin is clearly racist. But since I sung that in kindergarden myself: We didn't associate "black man" with a person of colour. When I was 4, I was imagining some creep in a black trenchcoat.

[–] FinishingDutch 9 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Since Americans basically stole every tradition they have from someone else, I’m not gonna worry about their opinion on them :D

The US is a toddler when it comes to history and traditions. I drive by a church that was built in the year 900. That one’s actually called the ‘new church’ since it replaced one from the year 400. That’s history. And we’ve got traditions that go back centuries further.

Just because Americans prefer watered down, tame versions of our European traditions, doesn’t mean the rest of us are going to follow. Krampus, Sunneklaas, Sinterklaas and other traditions are here to stay.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Bigotry is as old as time.

Bragging about how vintage your racism is isn't impressive.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

"our racism is fine because it's Tradition™"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

No, even our traditions change.

Take Sinterklaas, the "blackface" wasn't something negative. Those black Pete were respected by everyone. It wasn't like the 1950 US television where blackface was used to represent dumb stereotypes of black people.

But even then, we Europeans see how it can be seen as something negative by certain groups, so to accommodate them they are being changed to soot Petes since they travel through chimneys.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 hours ago

I disagree strongly on the first point. Blackface was not percieved as negative by a lot of people because they had no awareness of it's significance, but black pete has always been a racist stereotype. It's not "oh, this is a character who happens to be black", it's "this thick-lipped gold-earring wearing pitch-black person with old-timey clothes is the servant of an old bisshop".

This shit has always been fucked up. And we didn't just make an easy decision to change them because some people were uncomfortable, people fought for that. And half of the people are still "bUt iTs jUsT a ChIlDrEnS hOlIdAy iS evErYthInG rAciSt tHEse DaYs?"

[–] [email protected] 13 points 12 hours ago

they actually had this thing called indian plays in both soviet countries and germany

Americans are so racist they have to fabricate nonexistent racist stuff elsewhere to feel better about their own racism. Impressive.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 12 hours ago

Sorry but the comment about the films is horseshit

2024 will mark about two decades of sitting through Home Alone and Die Hard, and before that it was two decades of Shitty Shitty Bang Bang (thanks autocorrect 😂) and The Wizard of Oz

Quite looking forward to the new Wallace and Gromit though!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

Happy Halcyon Days, everyone!

[–] [email protected] 28 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

you bring up rudolph the red nosed reindeer and they bring out Skimbo the filthy redskin and im barely even joking about that they actually had this thing called indian plays in both soviet countries and germany

IDK about the soviet union, but "indian plays" are not a (common) christmas tradition in Germany. I've never even heard of those.

@OP thanks for adding the transcription.

[–] tfw_no_toiletpaper 6 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

I remember the Atlanta "Sinterklaas is coming to town" episode, hilarious 😂

But I didn't know about this supposed "tradition beforehand, despite living pretty close to the border and went down the Zwarte Piet rabbithole. There was a huge fight nationwide about if it should be banned or replaced (aka ash on fave instead of blackface) and there were a lot of " traditionalists", let's call them racists wanting to preserve their beloved racism custom. There are grown ass people painting their fave pitch balck, lips red, afro wig and gold hoop earrings. Yeah, definitely normal tradition.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Most people in the Netherlands are now also opposed to having blackface during Sinterklaas. However, there is a significant group that feel that their identity is threathed if you criticize their tradition. They are not the smartest people in our country (to say it lightly) and they express this opinion by doing stuff like that. Fortunately, they are a minority now and zwarte Piet does not look like that anymore.

It is a bit strange to have grown up in the Netherlands with zwarte Piet. As a child, I really liked him because I believed that he brought me presents. I wrote him and Sinterklaas letters and I have a lot of drawings of zwarte Piet that I made as a child. I did draw him like a stereotypical black person, because that was what he looked like at the time. As a child I did not know any better and I just liked zwarte Piet. But now when I look back at it I feel ashamed.

When I found out the issues with zwarte Piet, I stopped including him in the celebrations as a black person. I also had discussions with friends and family members about this. This sometimes lead to a lot of anger. I think they felt like their innocent and happy memories of zwarte Piet they had as a child were tarnished and they were accused of being racist. That was difficult for a while. Currently, all people in my direct environment do not celebrate Sinterklaas anymore with zwarte Piet as a black person. If I ask them why they were angey before about it, they just tell me that I wanted to change things too fast and they felt accused.

[–] tfw_no_toiletpaper 5 points 10 hours ago

Thanks for your personal anecdote, there is always a bit of a disconnect between what is reported on media and how things are actually looking on ground. But glad to hear things have changed much over there.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The war on Christmas isn't real but I wish it was

[–] [email protected] 9 points 12 hours ago

Lets nuke the shit out of the shitty parts but keep the decorated live tree, pretty lights, egg nog, giving poor people and or family members things they cant normally afford and radicalizing our younger family members to be anarchistic leftists over ham or turkey or Chinese food while your older relatives try to push them as far right as possible and complain about everything that comes out of your mouth. You know the good parts of Christmas.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 21 hours ago (10 children)

Which European country was it that added a loophole to their constitution to allow slavery as punishment then manipulated their legal system to lock a third of black men up again? I forget.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Can we not try to avoid introspection into our own racism by talking about someone else's racism please?

Yes, this is a fucked up thing. Why do you specifically bring it up under a post about European racism tho?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

On the one hand, it's bait.

On the other hand I don't think the country that has formalised slavery and a culture of policing which views it's own citizens as prey really has the right to dictate conversation on race relations.

In no other field would such failure be seen as authority. You wouldn't pick a garage to fix your car because them accidentally destroying the most engines shows they're experts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

I disagree strongly with this sentiment. If there was one garage that was destroying engines and another garage removing all the seatbelts, sure, maybe engine-estroying-garage has their own shit going on, but that doesn't mean that their critisism of seatbelt-removing-garage is invalid.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

"my culture can't have racist elements because your culture is racister!"

truly a smackdown, i am humbled.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

Well, you didn't come with actual arguments, so I guess you are humbled.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Minor correction: racist blackface black Pete isn't a Christmas tradition. Also, we've had a big national talk about it, and now the only people who actually do blackface are the actual racists and the rest of us hate them.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

On the Three Magi Day, we see lots of children playing them and caroling in an official charity event. Yes, Balthasar often has dark makeup to more closely match his historical depiction and it's not racist. (I have talked to the single Black person in my town and they don't mind.) We just can't ship enough real Blacks in to play the third of the Magi for this one day. And yes, the Czech song is 50% basically "- Why are you black?" "- It's the sun."

Black people are a bit of a curiosity much like in the Middle Ages, and the attitude hasn't changed much. It's only people in Prague who are indifferent (except they will default to English), people outside Prague are like "what brought you here?" "oh, interesting". The real racism is against the Romani and Muslims: most people will think "this guy is here to steal stuff / blow something up" but in Prague they will keep it to themselves.

Edit: Looks like this is unrelated to "Black Pete", we don't have that here

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