The Black Pete Movement and Global Antiracism

This paper analyzes the development of the Zwarte Piet is Racisme movement in the Netherlands, in the period from June 2011 till December 2013. I examine how a diverse collective of protesters coalesced around this new antiracism movement. In particular, I look at how activists created and disseminated a new antiracist discourse around the concepts of racism, whiteness, institutional racism, and white privilege. The analysis demonstrates that that through symbolic action and discursive invention, protesters were able to make racism visible and reframe the meaning of race in the Netherlands.They drew thereby particularly upon American antiracism discourses, although applied in a very different context. This paper is not about the meaning of Zwarte Piet in the Netherlands, but how the protest movement used it as a symbol to introduce a new antiracism discourse. The aim of the article is to understand the movement Zwarte Piet is Racisme not as an isolated Dutch protest movement, but as part of a new, global antiracism movement.