Blackface at the Ballet Highlights a Global Divide on Race

By artappraiser on Mon, 12/23/2019 - 9:02pm |

A debate about blackface in the ballet world highlights a growing divide between the United States and Europe on questions of race and representation https://t.co/AOkYZPXLjL
— New York Times Arts (@nytimesarts) December 24, 2019

URL:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/arts/dance/blackface-ballet-bolshoi-misty-copeland.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimesarts

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It is a good thing that artists are addressing this issue on a global basis. Bravo to Misty Copeland and others.

by rmrd0000 on Tue, 12/24/2019 - 8:01am

Interesting take on blackface from the Netherlands

When Sinterklaas — or Saint Nicholas — descends on cities and towns across the Netherlands this weekend for annual street parades, protests will be inevitable. Not because locals object to the tradition of honoring a Christian saint with a long, white beard. What people find increasingly hard to stomach are Sinterklaas' helpers, known as Zwarte Pieten, or Black Petes, who are played by white people in full blackface, wearing bright red lipstick, colorful hats, wide trousers, Afro-style wigs and large gold earrings.

Black people in the Netherlands call Black Pete a racist caricature. And that is why they want to see the character changed — or scrapped entirely. Others insist there is nothing wrong with the Black Pete character.

This year, Dutch television will no longer feature Black Pete characters in full blackface but instead ones with just a few dark smudges to represent soot. The idea being that the character's face has become dirty from all the chimneys he has climbed down to deliver presents. A few Dutch cities and towns have already adopted the Sooty Pete character for their parades, yet traditionalists have called the change unnecessary.

https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-zwarte-piet-reignites-blackface-debate/a-51232646

by rmrd0000 on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 11:32am

Even a dumb cracker from the South living in Holland 30 or 40 years ago could figger out the hokey shuck-n-jive Black Piets were pretty offensive characters, roughly akin to smiling and groveling Shylocks. It is a bit odd, since Holland didn't have any black colonies, but I guess it's more deep dark Africa stuff.

by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 11:54am

" Holland didn't have any black colonies "..

The Dutch had several possessions in Western Africa. These included the Dutch Gold Coast, the Dutch Slave Coast, Dutch Loango-Angola, Senegambia, and Arguin. They built their first two forts on the Gold Coast in 1598 at Komenda and Kormantsil (in present day Ghana). link

....The enslaved men, women, and children who arrived in New Netherland came from a variety of African backgrounds, but a large majority of them were of Central African origins. Dutch merchants had established trade relations along the West Central African coasts, and Dutch control of Luanda (in present-day Angola) from 1641 to 1648 further promoted Dutch trade with this Central African region'''''. link

The colonization of (Dutch) Surinam is marked by slavery. Plantations relied on slave labour, mostly supplied by the Dutch West India Company from its trading posts in West Africa, to produce their crops. Sugar, cotton, and indigo were the main goods exported from the colony to the Netherlands until the early 18th century, when coffee became the single most important export product of Surinam. Planters' treatment of the slaves was notoriously bad[2]—historian C.R. Boxer wrote that "man's inhumanity to man just about reached its limits in Surinam" wikipedia, Surinam, Dutch colony

by NCD on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 2:48pm

Thx. I forgot about Surinam.

by rmrd0000 on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 3:50pm

Blackface at the Ballet Highlights a Global Divide on Race

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