Author Archives: Zeefuik
#DecolonizeDutchMedia – Dutch newspaper wonders “Nigger are you crazy?”
On July 31, Dutch newspaper NRC published a review of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between The World and Me. With its title, the piece written by Guus Valk asks: Nigger are you crazy? How do you destroy the black identity? This comes only days after the paper published a column entitled Black America needs to look at itself in which Black Americans were told to “stop impregnating 16 year old girls because your grandmother sat in the back of the bus.” Since NRC is so eager to weigh in on what Black people should do, it’s only right to provide translations so we can drag them from the bench to the field.
Aside from the racist title, the piece which also discusses Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and Mat Johnson’s Loving Day, is adorned with this illustration (pic) by Aron Vellekoop León who captured Blackness as Dutch, mainstream whiteness likes to see it: colonial, submissive, sad and with a dash of blackface. When one of the sharpest Twitterati in the Dutch conversations about racism confronted Valk with the title, he stated that he merely writes the reviews but doesn’t pick the titles, intro’s and illustrations. He didn’t object to the use of the word nigger or the disgusting illustration. If that wasn’t a co-sign, it was at least a shrug.
Valk needs less than two sentences to illustrate how little he understands about racism. “The issue of race was assumed to be settled with Obama as president. Since the Summer of 2014 it became clear that this is absolutely false.” Imagine the uneducated white privilege that produces the illusion that in the evening of November 4 2008, racism was put on hold and that nothing racist happened until the white officer Darren Wilson killed the Black teenager Michael Brown.
With every single sentence, Valk drags himself further and further from the understanding that his analyses about racism are only as valuable as the silence that fails to smother them. He states: “A few years America, especially [white] America, lived in a dream. A new era had arrived, in which old problematic race relations didn’t matter anymore. The inauguration of president Barack Obama, the first black president, underlined that America has entered a post-racial era. Of course there are still differences between [white] and black but they’re more the result of social class than of race.” I write white in brackets because, to the vast majority of Dutch people being called white… well, those are fighting words. The Dutch prefer ‘blank’, a term that has no non-Dutch equivalent but means “bright white, without stains, without color”. It can be used for people but also for varnish or a yoghurt like dairy product called vla. If it sounds familiar, 
that’s probably because you’ve seen it on the signs from South Africa’s official apartheid era.
Then there’s also the term Black which is written with a lower case ‘b’ because the idea of Black with a captial B, combining political identities with African and/or Afrodiasporic heritages, has yet to enter mainstream Dutch media. How serious can we take someone who wonders “How do you articulate racism” but is still too much of a coward to rid his work of the comfort that the word ‘blank’ continues to provide? With his “The debate about race is dead serious, especially from the [white] perspective” he affirmed that he has absolutely no idea what he read or what he’s writing.
“Do we truly expect something different from a white privileged son of the Netherlands’ hyper-colonial academic climate and journalistic mediocrity?” This isn’t about expectation or even what “surprises” us, it’s about forced accountability and decolonizing Dutch media. And yes, it’s absolutely about putting a blowtorch to any conversation about Dutchness that fails to mention the country’s national levels of xenophobia, colonialism and/or racism.
Let us not be distracted and exhausted by white privilege driven liberals who slither towards our mentions or inboxes with lamentations of intentions, context or other philosophical derailings. The review is real, the illustration is real and both are problematic so let us have this conversation without those whose mere intention is to whitesplain this into nothingness. There’s no time to judge the arsonist by all the things he didn’t set on fire. We’re burning.
To join the conversation on social media, please use the hashtag #DecolonizeDutchMedia and consider adding Guus Valk, NRC and/or the newspaper’s literary blog.
#DecolonizeDutchMedia – Dutch newspaper urges Black America to stop blaming white people
Written by: Chandra Frank and Simone Zeefuik
Myths of the Netherlands as the home of tulips and tolerance should only exist in the minds of those who’re in the business of touristy promotions. In reality, this is the country of Eva “Nggbtch” Hoeke, Thierry Baudet who got his privilege ravaged and handed to him by the briljant Fatou Diome and Dutch sports commentators who, on national TV, wonder if Boko Haram would be part of Nigeria’s soccer team. It’s the home of white cartoonists who mock Black casualties of forced migration and white public figures who appear on talkshows to refer to African refugees as “blackies” or tell the presenter that he’s rather unlucky because he’s “not just Black… but also stupid!” This is the Netherlands, where on July 23 national newspaper NRC offered space to Charles Groenhuijsen’s column about the trials of the Black communities and the Black Lives Matters campaign founded by Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors (pic). The title: “Black America needs to look at itself.”
In his intro, Groenhuijsen argues that “Black poverty in the US comes forth out of racism, but you can’t blame white people for everything.” Groenhuijsen, a white Dutch journalist, writer and public speaker who’s based in Bethesda (USA), is the quintessential poster boy of his country’s distorted approach to Black people’s histories, the national sentiment that whiteness outweighs research or study and the subpar level of journalism all this produces. He continues: “Ask Americans what the biggest problem of the country is and they will start about the economy, unemployment and the role of the government. And since this Spring also racism. Not that racism was ever gone, but it wasn’t on top of the list. Because of deathly incidents where police officers killed black civilians (Ferguson, Staten Island, South-Charleston) racism is back on the front pages. It is a persistent problem. Contradictions between white and black are rather bigger than smaller. Also the first black president of the US does not bring improvement. Obama doesn’t realize the impossible. Which is not a reproach.”
The Dutch in any case, from their role in slavery to their grave abuse of the rights of illegalized refugees, demand nuance. Whenever racism is discussed in the Netherlands it is always in conjunction with nuance. Groenhuijsen has no intention to break his country’s code of whiteness: “Who in a discussion about racism insists on nuance can count on criticism. What is there to nuance about racism? I will try either way. Not to suggest it’s not that bad with discrimination in the US. It is bad. Large and small racism is there every day. At the office, at school, in shops, on street corners. It leads to an angry debate that gets stuck in the hopeless binary of right and wrong, victim and perpetrator. Too often it is about the consequences in the 21st century of slavery in the 18th and 19th century: a black-white dispute in which bitterness and pessimism prevail. Too many whites say: racism is about over. If a black American can conquer the White House, is everything possible. Stop complaining and demonstrating. Oh, and as well-meaning white person I don’t want to be blamed for something that happened two centuries ago.”
Groenhuijsen’s call for nuance is appalling. Not only is he telling Black Americans what to do in a Dutch newspaper, he suggests Black Americans play an equal part in the current racial affairs. He fails to ask why Black people are attacked and incarcerated daily, fails to ask how white people contribute and maintain the very white supremacist system that he calls nuanced racism. Where does he question how it is possible that Black people are arrested on non-existing grounds and die at the hands of the State? The problem with Groenhuijsen and the likes is that next to forever wanting nuance they also are firm believers of equality. After his ‘analysis’, he deems himself important enough to offer ‘solutions’ for America’s future. And of course, the answer lays in the idea that Black and white both need to let go of their prejudice and work together towards a ‘hopeful’ future. “Is there only bad news for black America? No, the good news is that more and more African Americans are successful. You can become professor, surgeon, director, top athlete, popstar, and indeed president. Unfortunately, the number of those who structurally stay behind remains too large. Too often Black Americans misused deprivation (as powerlessness, despair?) as something to be proud of. Who tries to do better is a show off: ‘You are acting so white’.”
As a good little white progressive, Groenhuijsen reminds us what his kinfolks are known for: discussing racism and discrimination by talking about how it affects white people. “In the meantime, discrimination against white people is very common. Just ask a random white pupil or student. Is it a form of bitterness?” This is the kind of mind that produces hashtags like #AllLivesMatter but limits calls for ‘inclusion’ to occasions when whiteness fears that its ‘other, better side’ is being ignored. Unable to see racism as an oppressive structure, white people like Groenhuijsen fail to graduate from the ‘Why don’t you like me? Why aren’t we talking about what this means for me?’-part of the conversation. To him and the vast majority of his countrymen, racism is the result of a lack of effort to overcome inequalities. Groenhuijsen references cops killing Black people, the link between poverty and racism, the existing figures on racism, and still argues whites will only change their attitudes if Black Americans change their behaviour. Groenhuijsen eagerly makes use of the widespread idea that Black humanity is dependent on white goodwill. He states: “[…] young black Americans: you don’t need to impregnate 16 year old girls because your grandmother sat in the back of the bus. You don’t need to shoot and kill fellow blacks because there was once slavery […] Of course black lives are of value. But why do Black Americans kill each other so often (more than 40 deaths a week)? When compared to whites, the number of African American killers is seven times as high. Doesn’t your battle cry count in those cases? Why isn’t there a black leader standing up to yell “Yes, all black lives matter” for every black murder victim? […] Obama is the best possible ally of black Amerika. But don’t expect a black president to solve just solve all problems for you.”
The aim of the translations we offer here is not to reproduce his racist and violent words, but to hold Groenhuijsen and Dutch media responsible and call them out on their racist propaganda. Dutch media needs to face their daily reproduction of whiteness plus answer for it on both a national and an international level. It is utter cowardice to write such bold, anti-Black statements about a movement but do so in a way in which the changes of a response are slim to none. Did Groenhuijsen approach any American media in an attempt to sell his Dutch views on the Black Lives Matter movement? If Groenhuijsen is serious, or at least sincere, about the advice he wants to offer Black America, why did he choose this rather inaccessible form? Could it be that, not quit unlike a growing group of white liberals/progressives/saviors/etc. Groenhuijsen thinks that conversations about Black people need to be had far away from the reality that we might respond and drag them for filth?
Please add #DecolonizeDutchMedia to your statements on social media and consider mentioning @nrcnext when you’re Tweeting about this article. We’re urging everybody to not click on any of the NRC links so they can’t turn this into some random click peak that will make them more interesting for sponsors and/or advertisers.
Wij
(Speech die ik op 26 juni tijdens de Keti Koti tafra in het Bijlmer Parktheater gaf)
Wij die met zusters als Stacey Esajas en Marian Markelo onze voorouders danken
en leven blijven blazen in dat waar zij voor gestorven zijn
Wij die weten dat het bittere reinigt en
geen genoegen nemen met zoethoudertjes omdat we weten hoe duur de suiker is
Wij die vechten voor beter en vooral eerlijk onderwijs
en keer op keer wraken wanneer de conducteur van tram 9 omroept dat de volgende halte
Plantage Middenlaan is.
Wij kinderen van Sophie Redmond,
Joceline Clemencia,
Dobru,
Clark Accord,
Ellin Robles,
Anton de Kom,
Segundo “Boy” Ecury,
Waldo Heilbron,
Légène Zeefuik,
Fred Derby.
Wij die werden nagestaard
en terugkeken
werden bespuugd
maar terugbeten
Wij die Kerwin Duinmeijer nooit zullen vergeten
het niet altijd even goed documenteerden of archiveerden maar
altijd, altijd, altijd hebben gedemonstreerd en gestreden
Wij die buttons met 1873 dragen omdat officiële data mooi en waar zijn
maar we beter weten
Wij die ons op 18 januari 1919 verenigden en het Hugo Olijfveldhuis betraden
wiens centra Flamboyant waren
die in Zami een nieuwe spelling van onze naam vonden
die geen tijden hadden om door anderen gedefinieerd te worden en onszelf
ZMV noemden
Wij en ons Zwart Beraad
onze OCAN
BLAAC bookstore
Soapbox
onze dialoogtafels
onze ASAH
Imagine IC
ons New Urban Café
Wij die tentoongesteld werden maar nu onze Black Heritage Tour naar het Rijksmuseum brengen
Wij die het Tropenmuseum en het museum van Volkenkunde zullen dekoloniseren
Wij die exposeren
die onze Rebelse Trots op in Dakar geborduurde doeken vereeuwigen
met de tentoonstelling Agnosia onszelf bestuderen
die onze eigen, door onszelf geschreven verhalen publiceren
onszelf met Da Bounce, Urban Myth, Untold in theaters zetten
Wij die theaters runnen
Wij die theaters runnen wiens sterren Kraters slaan
Wij die in Black Harmony onze zielen horen
Wij die regisseren
Al generaties lang het NOS journaal presenteren
Wij die er geen geloof in hebben dat de mainstream media zichzelf dekoloniseert en dus
onze eigen talkshows financieren
Wij die ons in De Wereld Draait Door geen “zwartjes” laten noemen
Wij die rotzooiprogramma’s als De Wereld Draait Door, Pauw en Jinek überhaupt niet zouden moeten kijken
Wij die trots zijn op Humberto en het zo jammer vinden dat zijn show zijn naam niet draagt.
Wij, met onze voetballers die Kabels zijn
met onze voetballers die na een wedstrijd van Jong Oranje met de Surinaamse vlag op hun schouders over het veld rennen
en slechts één selfie nodig hebben om het Nederlands racisme te vangen
Wij die, wanneer ze ons op de bank laten zitten, de leeuw op een poes laten lijken
Wij die onszelf er niet vaak genoeg aan kunnen herinneren dat ons verzet niet in Gouda begon
Wij die reeds in 1987 in Sesamstraat over zwarte Piet zeiden:
“Nee, Pino… het is helemaal niet leuk. Ik heet Gerda, ook als het Sinterklaasfeest is.”
Wij kleinkinderen van Tula en Alida
Met het hart op de tong
de overleving in onze spraak
en de afkeur in onze tjoeries
Wij die luid lachen maar geen grappen maken
Wij die altijd zullen rouwen om de Decembermoorden,
Moiwana,
Trinta di Mei,
de vliegrampen
Wij wiens tranen zouter zijn dan die van Den Uyl
Wij die soms vergeten dat Keti Koti niet alleen een Surinaamse viering is
Wij die de fysieke ketenen hebben gebroken maar ons soms nog laten vangen door
tradities
gedachten
gewoontes
schoonheidsidealen
smoesjes
subsidies
Wij die nu met elkaar in gesprek zullen gaan over onze helden en herinneringen
Wij die ter afsluiting van deze speech om ons heen kijken naar dit prachtige gezelschap
aan deze geweldige Keti Koti Tafra
Wij die het glas heffen en toasten
Op ons
Op ons!
laZeefuik 