评论
打印
I just got a package from my grandma in Belgium.
我刚收到了我住比利时的奶奶寄过来的一个包裹。
She’s sent me one at the beginning of December, for as long as I can remember, to celebrate St. Nicholas Day.
从我记事起，她每年十二月初都会给我寄圣尼古拉斯节的礼物。
That’s when their traditional version of Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, comes to visit kids and reward the good ones, and punish the bad ones.
圣尼古拉斯节是她们那边的圣诞老人“Sinterklaas”出来看望各家各户的小孩，并奖励乖孩子，惩罚淘气的孩子的时候。
And there’s always lots of good stuff in here — there are belgian waffles, there are speculoos cookies, chocolate, there's lots of chocolate —
里面通常都是很多很多好东西——有比利时华夫饼，有圣诞饼干，巧克力，很多很多巧克力——
and then, sometimes, there’s this: This is Zwarte Piet, that’s Dutch for Black Pete.
有时，还会有这个东西：用荷兰语说就是Zwarte Piet，意思是黑皮特。
He’s St. Nicholas’ traditional “assistant,” he's the guy who carries all the presents around and punishes all the bad kids.
他是圣尼古拉斯的老“助手”，背着那些礼物跑来跑去的是他，惩罚坏孩子的也是他。
You can kind of think of him like one of Santa’s elves — except he’s a blackface caricature.
你可以把他想象成圣诞老人的一个精灵——除了……他是一个长得比较夸张的黑人。
Black Pete has painted black skin, big gold hoop earrings, oversized red lips, and he wears colorful Renaissance-era clothing.
黝黑的皮肤，大大的金耳环，超大的红嘴唇，一身文艺复兴时期的鲜艳打扮。
Throughout Belgium and the Netherlands, people dress up as Black Pete around St. Nicholas day.
圣尼古拉斯节前后，比利时人和荷兰人就会装扮成黑皮特的模样。
This is what it looked like in 1930, in a small town north of Amsterdam.
这是1930年，阿姆斯特丹北部的一个小镇庆祝圣尼古拉斯节的情形。
And in 1970, at a local gym.
这是1970年，当地一家健身房里的情形。
And in 2006, at an elementary school.
2006年一所小学。
And in 2014, at a parade.
2014年的一次街头巡游。
I grew up with this tradition in Belgium.
我就是在这种传统下的比利时长大的。
People dressed up as Black Pete and St. Nicholas would come visit my school and take pictures and pass out candy.
大家会打扮成黑皮特，圣诞老人也会去我的学校照相，给大家发糖什么的。
But Black Pete is a racist caricature.
问题是，黑皮特是一种种族主义戏仿。
It’s a remnant of the Netherlands’ colonial past.
这也是荷兰的殖民历史残留下来的一种文化。
And this tradition is now at the center of a heated political debate.
如今，这一传统已经被推到了激烈的政治辩论的风口浪尖上。
“It’s a bit disturbing to realize that you have enjoyed, as a child, something that now turns out to be problematic.
“发现你小时候很喜欢的一个东西原来是有问题的，这是会让大家觉得有点不安的。
That’s disturbing. So they say, ‘don’t mess with my memories.’ ”
因为大家会感觉不安，所以他们会说，‘别来糟蹋我的回忆。’”
Those in the Netherlands who defend Black Pete argue that it can’t be changed because it’s a tradition that’s been around forever.
为黑皮特辩白的荷兰人认为，这一传统不能改，因为那是他们的传统，他们一直就是这么过来的。
The prime minister even made this argument when he was asked about it at a nuclear security summit in 2014:
就连他们的首相也表达了这样的观点，那是2014年的一次核安全峰会上，在被问及此事时，他说道：
“What I said is that Black Pete is black. And I cannot change that, because the name is Black Pete.
“我说的是，黑皮特就是黑人。这我改变不了，因为他的名字就叫黑皮特。
This is an old children’s tradition, Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet, Black Pete.
这是一个古老的儿童节日，圣诞老人和黑皮特。
And it is not Green Pete or Brown Pete, it is Black Pete, so I cannot change that."
不是绿皮特也不是棕皮特，偏偏就是黑皮特，所以我改变不了。”
On top of that, you’ll hear a lot of people say that the black face paint is okay
最重要的是，你会听到很多人说把脸抹成黑色并没有什么问题，
because doesn’t represent skin color — instead it’s just the soot from the chimney.
因为它不代表肤色——那个黑黑的东西只是烟囱里的烟灰而已。
But historically, neither of those defenses is actually true.
然而，从历史的角度来看，这两种辩白都是站不住脚的。
Zwarte Piet was originally written as a black slave character, and the blackface tradition was invented fairly recently.
黑皮特最初就是一部文学作品里的一个黑人奴隶角色，而把脸抹成黑色的传统是最近才兴起的。
Though St. Nicholas folklore had been celebrated since the Middle Ages,
虽然圣尼古拉斯的民间传说从中世纪就开始流传了，
there was no slave character involved until 1850,
但直到1850年，奴隶角色才开始出现在这类传说中，
when this guy — a Dutch schoolteacher named Jan Schenkman — wrote a children’s book called “St. Nicholas and his Servant”.
当时是这位哥们儿——一个叫简·申克曼的荷兰教师——写了一部名为《圣尼古拉斯和他的仆人》的儿童读物。
The story describes how St. Nicholas visits a Dutch town, rewarding the good kids, punishing the bad kids.
书里讲的是圣尼古拉斯去了一个荷兰小镇，奖励乖孩子，惩罚调皮的孩子的故事。
But just looking at the original illustrations for the book,
但只要看过这本书的原始插画，
you can tell that Black Pete isn’t just a white Dutchman covered in soot.
你就会发现，黑皮特并非就是一个身上抹满了煤灰的荷兰白人。
He’s portrayed as a Moor from Spain, carrying St. Nicholas’ heavy loads, wrapping up all the presents,
他被描绘成了一个来自西班牙的摩尔人，既要负责扛圣尼古拉斯的大包礼物，包装所有的礼物，
and punishing naughty kids by hitting them with a switch or kidnapping them in a knapsack to take them back to Spain.
还要惩罚淘气的孩子，用鞭子打他们，或者把他们塞到背包里带回西班牙。
He’s not exactly a pleasant character in this original version of the story.
在原版故事里，他并不是一个特别讨喜的角色。
“What I remember vividly is the sentiment of being scared.
“我清楚地记得的是害怕的感觉。
What if suddenly a Zwarte Piet comes out of the chimney while I’m there alone? Terrifying.
那时候就会想，我一个人的时候，要是黑皮特突然从烟囱里爬出来了怎么办？太可怕了。
And the terror of young children who don’t feel safe is quite a powerful emotion, that really stays with you.
小孩子没有安全感的话，他们那种害怕的感觉是非常强烈的，会一直纠缠着他们。
If you habituate children to this response to these strange characters with black faces, that’s their model of black people.”
如果你让孩子们对这种黑脸的陌生人养成了这种习惯性的反应，那这种反应就会变成他们在黑人面前的标准反应。”
When Schenkman wrote his children’s book, slavery was still alive and well in the Dutch colonies — it wasn’t abolished for another 13 years, in 1863.
申克曼写这本书的时候，奴隶制在荷兰殖民地还很兴旺——又过了13年，也即到了1863年的时候才被废除。
Even then, slaves had to work for another 10 years as reparations to the slaveholders.
即便被废除了，奴隶们还得再工作10年，作为对奴隶主的赔偿。
The government treated abolition as a financial inconvenience.
在荷兰政府看来，废除奴隶制给他们的财政带来了不便。
Beyond Dutch history, blackface originated for the purpose of mocking and dehumanizing black people.
撇开荷兰历史不谈，画黑脸这种做法最初也是为了嘲弄黑人，侮辱黑人的人格。
In minstrel shows in the mid to late 1800s, white actors would use black grease paint on their faces to depict black people on stage.
在19世纪中后期吟游歌手的表演中，舞台上的黑人都是往脸上涂黑色油彩的白人演员装扮的。
You could watch minstrel shows like this as recently as 1978 on BBC.
BBC网站上还有这种类型的节目，最近的一期是1978年的。
Taking place in societies that systematically mistreated black people, these portrayals served as a tool of oppression.
在有组织地虐待黑人的社会环境里，这种展现方式也成了他们压迫黑人的工具。
Though Black Pete is the most beloved blackface character in European culture, he’s not the only one.
黑皮特是欧洲文化中最受欢迎的黑脸角色，却不是欧洲文化中的唯一一个黑脸角色。
If you look at Belgian comic strips like Tintin, French ones like Asterix and Obelix, or Dutch ones like Sjors&Sjimmie,
看看比利时的漫画《丁丁历险记》，法国的漫画《阿斯泰里克斯和欧贝克斯》或者荷兰的《约斯和吉米历险记》，
you can see versions of blackface caricatures everywhere.
你就会发现，欧洲文化里有各式各样的黑人形象。
Black Pete, no matter how innocent the Dutch might think him to be, normalizes these portrayals.
黑皮特不过是将这种展现方式标准化了，无论荷兰人认为黑皮特的形象多么清白。
“Of course it is political. You don’t invent a tradition like this in innocence.”
“当然是政治操作了。创造出这样的传统不可能是清白无辜的。”
It’s really common to hear stories about black people being called “Zwarte Piet” by children.
听到黑人被小孩子叫作“黑皮特”也已经见怪不怪了。
It also serves as a basis for racialized bullying in schools.
这一做法也为学校里的各种种族歧视现象奠定了基础。
“Black children are hurt, and parents are keeping their children home from school,
“黑人儿童受到伤害，父母不让孩子上学，
rather than send them to grow up with this stereotype that makes them feel that they’re inferior to the white kids.”
避免让孩子带着这种让他们觉得自己不如白人孩子的刻板印象长大。”
And it’s common to hear people saying that black people in the Netherlands are totally okay with it,
我们也经常听到人们说荷兰的黑人完全接受大家打扮成黑皮特的做法，
that their black neighbor or black friend actually likes it.
说他们的黑人邻居或黑人朋友还很喜欢他们这么做。
Here’s Prime Minister Rutte again, making that argument:
下面还是吕特首相的看法：
“I can only say that my friends in the Dutch Antilles, they are very happy when they have Sinterklaas because they don’t have to paint their faces.
“我只能说，我那些荷属安的列斯群岛的朋友过圣诞节的时候是很高兴的，因为他们不用画脸，
And when I’m playing Black Pete, I’m for days trying to get off the stuff on my face.”
但我要打扮成黑皮特的时候，我得清理好几天才能把脸上的东西清理干净。”
That was the prime minister saying that a blackface tradition is really more annoying for him,
首相的意思是，画黑脸这一传统对他来说是让他很头疼的一件事，
because when he puts on blackface, it’s hard to get the paint off.
因为他画黑脸的时候清理颜料很困难。
“These people were angry about Black Pete, who’s Santa’s traditional sidekick there.
“这些人对黑皮特这一形象很生气，黑皮特是那边的圣诞老人的老搭档。
60 people were arrested for demonstrating away from locations that were set aside for protests, 30 more for disturbing public order.”
有60人因在专用的示威地点之外示威被捕，另有30人因扰乱公共秩序被捕。”
