S 2 Bonus Xmas Epi: Black Pete, Skeletor Santa

This episode 7H,10H is honored to welcome Louis Römer, ethnographer extraordinaire of the Caribbean and the Netherlands, to discuss Santa's demonic entourage in the Netherlands and Germany, namely Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and Krampus.

We discuss the way these Santa-demons and their re-invented traditions matter for racial politics in Europe, the Caribbean, and Upstate New York. And why, in Italy, Santa is Black.

Follow Louis on Twitter: @lromeranth

Sources:

Sacha Hilhorst and Joke Hermes “‘We have given up so much’: Passion and denial in the Dutch Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) controversy”

Yannick Coenders and Sébastien Chauvin, “Race and the Pitfalls of Emotional Democracy: Primary Schools and the Critique of Black Pete in the Netherlands”

Nicole Römer (Louis’s cousin): “Ik Heb Een Naam” (I have a name) (English language piece on responding to racism in the Netherlands and how Zwarte Piet factors in.)

Magdalena Berger, “Warum sich immer mehr junge Männer als Krampusse verkleiden”

Eva Reisinger, “Dumme österreichische Bräuche: Warum ich den Krampus hasse”