Christmas caption competition

During recent years the role of Zwarte Piet has become part of a recurring debate in the Netherlands. To this day, holiday revellers in the Netherlands blacken their faces, wear afro wigs and bright red lipstick, and walk the streets throwing candy to passers-by.
Accepted in the past without controversy in a once largely ethnically homogeneous nation, today Zwarte Piet is somewhat controversial and greeted with mixed reactions. Many see him as a cherished tradition and look forward to his annual appearance. Others detest him— for example, people overseas, based on the history of slavery and blackface. The lyrics of traditional Sinterklaas songs and some parents warn that Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet will leave well-behaved children presents, but punish those who have been naughty. They will kidnap bad children and carry these children off in a sack to their homeland of Spain, where, legend has it, Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet dwell out of season.
The origin and appearance of Zwarte Piet is seen by some today as a form of racism that promotes a negative stereotype of dark-skinned people as evil, stupid, emasculated or foolish. These same behaviour and physical characteristics are shared by the typical character in the condemned early 20th Century American tradition blackface, even though The Netherlands, like many European countries did share the tradition. The Netherlands' non-white population in particular finds Black Peter and his representation as child-like and in blackface to be offensive.[4]
Foreign tourists, particularly Americans, are often bewildered. Since the last decade of the 20th century there have been several attempts to introduce a new kind of Zwarte Piet to the Dutch population. These Zwarte Pieten have replaced the traditional black make-up for all sorts of colours. These multi-colored Pieten are unpopular amongst the Dutch population and are not catching on.[5] In 2006 the NPS replaced the black Pieten by these rainbow-coloured Pieten, but in 2007 they reverted to the traditional all-black Pieten.[6]

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