Verene Shepherd

infodesk@ohchr.org;

Subject: Something to enlighten you in foreign culture traditions which you obviously do not know anything about

Dear Ms. Shepherd,

I am writing you this email regarding your recent comments on the celebration of 'Sinterklaas' in my country The Netherlands.

It seems to me that you have been receiving some very biased information and therefore I am worried that you will start your upcoming investigation from a biased point of view.

I would like you to read the following information in the hope I can show you the other, and much more supported, side of the story.

What I would like you to understand is that nobody, rare exceptions aside, celebrates Sinterklaas with any form of racist intentions.

That 'Zwarte Piet' (Black Pete) has a black skin colour is a clear fact.

However, I do not see the problem with that.

Zwarte Piet is a very positive character.

He is gentle, generous, friendly, acrobatic, often very smart (the Zwarte Pieten handle all of Sinterklaas' business (as his voluntary helpers/employees, not as his slaves) and children love and adore him!

More even so than Sinterklaas.

I cannot escape the notion that you seem to value skin colour as a thing of importance.

I noticed that in your recent interview with a Dutch journalist you often start sentences with 'As a black person...'.

I must say that I consider this to be faulty manner of communication, especially for someone who has human rights as her profession.

What would you think if I started arguments with 'As a white person...', or 'As a person with blue eyes...'.

Especially with the last example I'm sure you'll see it doesn't make any sense.

Colour is not an argument.

I cannot help but conclude that, just like the people who filed complaints against 'Zwarte Piet' in The Netherlands, you too look at the world in a,
I'm sorry to say, racist manner.

You value colour of skin.

Well, I'm quite wonder-struck that I have to explain to you,
a human rights worker of all people,
that the colour of someone's skin does not and should not matter.

Whether you have a black, brown, white, yellow or red skin, it is of no concern for anything and should never be used as an argument for anything!

Anyone who feels differently about this is someone who divides the world in colour groups and is therefore a racist.

This is what I believe to be the case with the people who see 'Zwarte Piet' as something ‘racist’.

Not the people in The Netherlands who celebrate Sinterklaas and who love the character 'Zwarte Piet', without ever considering his black skin as anything negative whatsoever, are the racists, but JUST the people who complain about it.

Thèy are the ones who seem to think skin colour matters.

The people who like to celebrate Sinterklaas just want to keep their tradition the way it has always been. That's it.

If Zwarte Piet had always been BLUE we would have wanted him to stay blue.

And the group of supporters of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet form a vast majority of 90% to 96% of the Dutch population (and are not just people with white skins).

Thank you for your consideration.

I can see you seem to have a ‘problem’ with the knowledge about ‘slavery’?

I am most willing to sent you an informing You Tube about this matter in case you really do have NO NOTION about the ‘slavery,

how it started and WHOM it started and WHOM are still ‘keeping slaves’!

That is something I, for instance anyway, am vèry astonished about that you do not address your ‘complaint' where it ought to be addressed!

Yours faithfully,

Scarlatti Bombatti

Slavery Still Exist In Africa - The Origins of the African Slave Trade Published on 23 Jul 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfV5PIAqkSQ#t=13