Smink

Verb: to paint one's face - often painting it black
In this week's special Saint Nicholas-themed edition, we learn about sminking. Now, some people may cringe at the similarities with black face minstrels, but you need to understand the cultural context in Holland. Holland is a tolerant country. Even our minorities and our racists are tolerant. Likewise we are tolerant of minories and racists. So that means there can't be any racism... I think.

Anyway, around this time of year you often see people in black-face and pantaloons running around the city. They have 'schmink' ed themselves, to look like Zwarte Piet, who are basically what the elves are to Santa. Here are a couple of photos to give you an idea. And here is a what google images shows us.




(Okay, these guys at Carnival aren't Zwarte Piets, but they have obviously reused their zwarte piet costumes. This only further shows the tolerance of sminking.)

To show you the difference between blackface and sminking for St. Nick, take a look at the following example. I have taken a completely innocent subject, made him racist, and then made it okay again.



The history of Zwarte Piets is probably to do with slavery or the devil, but over time as values changed, Dutch people have changed the story (rather than the tradition), and now they are seen more as elves and helpers who like to play with kids and hand out candy. So, who can complain with that.

I was once working a random job with a female who happened to be black. We were sitting down outside a supermarket taking a small break when a woman and her young daughter stopped at our bench to pack their groceries. The little girl looked up at my colleague and asked "Are you Zwarte Piet?"
You would think this is awkward, but this must be a very common occurence for black people in Holland. I guess they are tolerant?

In the true spirit of Saint Nicholas, I have written a poem about Zwarte Piets and sminking.


Saint Nicholas is kind of like a modern-day Robin Hood
He gives presents only to the children who have been good
So to find the nice children he has to leave the country of Spain
And takes the boat over to the land of snow, sleet and rain

But it he can't do this all by himself
He has always had 'Zwarte Piet' to lend him some help
In the olden days he used some North African Moors
But that would be racist, so he doesn't do that anymore

Instead, white people all over holland avoid such a disgrace
And they take out black shoe polish and put on black-face
Then we tell the children that Piet is covered with soot from the chimney
That means that their skin is not black - it's just dirty

So the for the weeks around december racism is completely solved, I think
All thanks the the power of smink


And really, this is the most magical time of the year. While Christmas is a big holiday like everywhere else, Saint Nicholas Day is truly our own. It's much more than about presents, it's about gazellishness and of course the sweets and baked goods that are so very Dutch. It is the most gazellish time of the year, smink or no smink.