Zwarte Piet sex or gender male
Zwarte Piet (Dutch: [ˈzʋɑrtə ˈpit]; French: Père Fouettard; Luxembourgish: Schwaarze Péiter; West Frisian: Swarte Pyt), also known in English by the translated name Black Pete, is the companion of Saint Nicholas (Dutch: Sinterklaas; French: Saint-Nicolas; West Frisian: Sinteklaas; Luxembourgish: Kleeschen) in the folklore of the Low Countries. The earliest known illustration of the character comes from an 1850 book by Amsterdam schoolteacher Jan Schenkman in which he was depicted as a black Moor from Spain.Those portraying the traditional version of Zwarte Piet usually put on dark make-up and colourful Renaissance attire in addition to curly wigs and bright red lipstick. Traditionally, Zwarte Piet distributes candy to well-behaved children, and punished the others – the punishment part fell out of use in the 1960s.In the Netherlands, and to a lesser extent in Belgium, the character has been increasingly controversial since the early 2010s and decreasingly prevalent at municipal holiday celebrations in the years that have followed. It has been argued that the character instills a negative image of black people into children from an early age; parallels have also been drawn to the American blackface. As of 2021, a revised version, dubbed Sooty Piet (Dutch: Roetveegpiet), has become more common than the traditional variant at public events, in addition to in television specials, films, social media, and advertising. Sooty Piet features the natural skin tone of the actors playing the character with soot marks created by streaks of dark makeup on their faces.
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