Let's talk about a serious subject: racism.
So I found out today that Playmobil will no longer be producing Zwarte Piet figures. As you can see from the image above, I have one.
See, I got him because my heritage is partially Dutch, and I knew about him as a kid, and seeing him in something I like made me happy.
I seriously put no thought into it other than that.
See, now I know Zwarte Piet is usually portrayed by a white man in blackface, and I think the blackface practice is wrong, but that the real Zwarte Piet is actually black, and therefore he himself isn't inherantly bad.
Well, this has caused quite a kerfuffle. See, alot of this is due to my ignorance about the character. Yes, I may have known about him as a kid, but I knew nothing more than him being Sinderklaas's helper.
I did some research. It turns out that he probably originated from the stories of a black demon who was used by Sinderklaas to scare children. Then he became a black Moorish man who was his servant. And now he's an unintelligent but happy servant.
Wow, all of this really seems wrong now, doesn't it?
But now here's a second thing that I don't know about. Is it also bad to just delete the character? I understand that in an ideal word, we'd have various people of color who are positive representations, but currently. at least in Zwarte Piet's case, we have the option of a racist caricature or complete erasure of a person of color.
And I feel awful for this when all I was trying to do was have a little tie to my heritage.
