this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024
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show transcriptchirasul 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.

(page 2) 48 comments
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[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

My Christmas tradition has the Krampus. He's both not racist and a terrifying monster. I'd call that a holiday tradition jackpot.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Are demons a race or a species?

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Krampus does have an unfortunate history of people beating each other up, though. And by "history" I mean "In many places it was the norm until a few years ago, and lots of people didn't get the memo yet and assault people who wear Krampus suits during parades etc.".

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In my hometown, we never had Krampus parades and it was more like children and Krampus pranking each other.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The parades are already the relatively modern, watered-down/'family-friendly' version of the old tradition.

The thing about pranks is that people don't tend to agree on what is okay for a prank. One person's funny prank might be another person's violent assault, same with how the Krampus is allowed to 'retaliate'.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I loved grinch back in the nineties.

Nirvana and all that.

[–] latenightnoir@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Like... everything that happened in Europe culturally in the 90s was derived from America, even waay into the 00s, and the 10s, and the - y'know what, they've colonised our culture (nevermind that ours was so permeable that we just lapped it all up)! Now I hate The Muppets, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and it was one of my favourite movies while growing up!

When did you say we're celebrating Hatemas Eve again, because sign me tf up!

(/s, of course)

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

To be fair, lots of influence came from the US and UK in the nineties. Lots of good stuff!

If I'm angry at something silly it would be coca cola santa lol 😁

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Colonial culture has defined and permeated European culture since forever.

[–] latenightnoir@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

That was the impulse behind my joke, pot calling the kettle black and all that... Didn't mean to imply any different, we started the whole mess after all...

[–] teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 2 days ago (4 children)

in the Netherlands we have a guy named Saint Nicholas that gave money to prostitudes and other poor people to save them, who then decided to join him. The best translation for their names i have is 'squires' but not really. Because they go down our chimneys to deliver gifts it's tradition for them to have ash on their face, which some are calling blackface.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Roetveegpiet seems to only have come about because of the blackface issue with Zvarte Piet, which was originally portrayed as a moor said to be a literal slave to Sinterklaas. Sooty Piet only got more popular than Black Piet in 2021., going from polls.

[–] teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've always heard that they were black because of the ashes. and, the original original Sinterklaas rescued prostitudes

[–] lime@feddit.nu 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

every source on the internet will tell you that the soot thing is from like the 90s at the earliest.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dutch Wikipedia has the first references to blackness from soot pinned to an image from the 1870s:

"Zwarte Piet had in deze tijd nog niet zijn huidige naam; zo is hij op een centsprent uit 1870 afgebeeld als een schoorsteenveger met de naam Zwartjan." https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet#:~:text=Zwarte%20Piet%20had%20in%20deze%20tijd%20nog%20niet%20zijn%20huidige%20naam%3B%20zo%20is%20hij%20op%20een%20centsprent%20uit%201870%20afgebeeld%20als%20een%20schoorsteenveger%20met%20de%20naam%20Zwartjan.

Translates to: "Black Pete did not have his current name yet, he was depicted on an image from the 1870s as a chimney sweeper named "Black Jan" (Jan is a stereotypically Dutch name, one of the most common Dutch first names. Pete, or Piet in Dutch, is also a very common Dutch name).

[–] lime@feddit.nu 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

i should have switched languages, there is of course more nuance in the original article. i'm reading a translated version so i may be missing something but "black jan" seems to be a reference to Jan Schenkman, the author. and although it is indeed stated that he had no intention of it being a depiction of a black person, the zeitgeist seems to have willed it into that shape anyway. after that section, the next reference to soot is in the early 1900s (not the 1990s as i read from the english page though). it does look like the soot explanation was the less popular one until fairly recently though.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

The name is a reference to Schenkman, but it did refer to the same character.

Piet's origins are all over the place, and form a perfect cocktail of "it looks bad, but the explanation is fairly innocent". There's elements from chimney sweepers, traditional Venetian Moorish outfits, German Krampus, the practical element of having black makeup making a close relative hard to recognize for children, etc... that all combined without much of a clear decision-making process. It all happened very gradually and naturally within Dutch society.

Hopefully we'll have this changed everywhere soon enough, though there are still some conservative areas that resist the change.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Because they go down our chimneys to deliver gifts it's tradition for them to have ash on their face, which some are calling blackface.

This was made up later because people were too uncomfortable with it, this was not the original story.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 11 points 1 day ago

Dutch Wikipedia has the first references to blackness from soot pinned to an image from the 1870s:

"Zwarte Piet had in deze tijd nog niet zijn huidige naam; zo is hij op een centsprent uit 1870 afgebeeld als een schoorsteenveger met de naam Zwartjan." https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet#:~:text=Zwarte%20Piet%20had%20in%20deze%20tijd%20nog%20niet%20zijn%20huidige%20naam%3B%20zo%20is%20hij%20op%20een%20centsprent%20uit%201870%20afgebeeld%20als%20een%20schoorsteenveger%20met%20de%20naam%20Zwartjan.

Translates to: "Black Pete did not have his current name yet, he was depicted on an image from the 1870s as a chimney sweeper named "Black Jan" (Jan is a stereotypically Dutch name, one of the most common Dutch first names. Pete, or Piet in Dutch, is also a very common Dutch name).

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet

Sounds like you're referring to the recent (2021) version, "Sooty Pete" but Black Pete has a couple hundred years on him.

[–] teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've always heard that they were black because of the ashes. and, the original original Sinterklaas rescued prostitudes

[–] megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

… so… why do they wear curly wigs?

… and put on red lipstick?

Does soot make your hair curly and lips extra red?

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[–] WarlockLawyer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fun post justification for characters originally based on black slaves.

[–] teije9@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

the original original Sinterklaas was a guy that rescued prostitudes

[–] Samsy@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

In some parts of Germany, the gifts are coming from the "Christ's child" which is an angel, a child, Jesus as a kid, all of them? I am from Germany, and I still don't know.

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[–] Gork@lemm.ee 11 points 2 days ago

When do I arm my strategic bomber for the War on Christmas? 🛫💣🎄🎇

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Happy Halcyon Days, everyone!

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And don't forget to spank your women.

Most of my girlfriends were into that.

[–] Davel23@fedia.io 6 points 1 day ago

The Jim Jefferies Show had a good bit on this: https://youtu.be/piGzE2cMVqA?si=ekVJu9FI7fmKJiA6

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