THE UN'S ATTACK ON BLACK PETE

As some of you may know, the UN is currently investigating the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, thinking it may be racist. Similar to Christmas, Saint Nicholas and his helpers come to the Netherlands once a year to give presents to children. The helpers, however, are not elves, but black people, named Black Pete. The claims made against the tradition are that: "the character and image of Black Pete perpetuate a stereotyped image of African people as second class citizens, fostering an underlying sense of inferiority in Dutch society"
Many Dutch are outraged by the UN's claims. A facebook page named Pietitie, or Pete-ition, has been created yesterday, combating the UN's claims, which has already gathered 1.2 million now.

I'm interested in opinions on this matter from outside the Netherlands. Is Black Pete a racist stereotype? Should the UN be spending their time on something like this at all?

author=papasan96
By a coincidence, this was in the Guardian today. If this article is accurate, it certainly sounds like it is racist, as well as that an increasing number of
Dutch are realizing this too.

Here

Interesting article, but I don't think it is very accurate. For instance, Black Pete no longer speaks in an accent, and songs that focus on his appearance are already being sung less snd less. The article calls Black Pete a slave-servant, and while he is a servant, he is no slave. The most likely backstory behind Black Pete (since we're not sure) is that the Turkish Saint Nicholas once freed an African slave and offered him a paid job as his servant. This could obviously still be considered racist, so children in the Netherlands learn that Black Pete is black because he climbs through chimneys. This may be historically inaccurate, and I can understand some adults thinking this is just a filthy way of covering up the ugly truth, but we are talking about children who hold their parents asthe highest authority and will believe anything they say. As long as parents don't make Black Pete out to be a racist stereotype, feelings of white surpremacy are not transferred from one generation to the next. The article uses Geert Wilders as an example of Dutch racism, and while it may be true he has created some racism and anti-islamic feelings in some people, the majority of Dutch people despise him (thank god) The people who use The word 'allochtoon' condescendingly or to describe black who are born and raised in the Netherlands are also often ridiculed.

Of course it is true that the Netherlands have a racism problem, but so do all other Western countries. I don't know if the problem is worse in the Netherlands than in other Western countries, but I find that hard to believe. Personally, I think that if we consider Black Pete racist, we should also consider Santa's elves discriminatory against dwarves.