Black Pete, “Smug Ignorance,” and the Value of the Black Body in Postcolonial Netherlands

Abstract

This article discusses the controversies over the blackface figure Black Pete (Zwarte Piet)—central to the popular Dutch Saint Nicholas holiday tradition—and the public uproar surrounding the Saint Nicholas feast in 2013. It combines history, social theory, and patchwork ethnography, and draws on theoretical approaches discussing race, capitalism, and the commodification of cultural difference to establish an understanding of the controversial character. In doing so, it argues that Black Pete is an invented tradition that marks a “white Dutch habitus” in which the historical context of colonialism and the legacy of slavery is repeatedly ignored or denied.