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While citizens across the U.S. tear down statues, I lift up local art depicting this areas first inhabitants, the Native Americans.

Among these few public works are Hector Garcias Chief Little Turtle (1976), a 10-foot bronze sculpture located in Headwaters Park. With one hand open in communication and the other closed in defiance, the figure challenges those crossing the footbridge over the St. Marys River into the Old Fort.

When I was a Brownie and a fourth grader studying Indiana history in the 1980s, I spent nights at this fort pretending to be a guard or a prisoner stuck in the pillory. The central theme of my education was that Fort Wayne began when white settlers developed Kekionga, former capital of the Miami tribe. In that context, Little Turtles statueoutside the fortpresented confusion about the good guys versus the bad guys.

Today, I live in New York City where I observe my hometown from a distance. The lessons I learned as a child reflect narratives told to Americans on a national scale from an early age. Statues are tangible evidence of sometimes skewed perspectives.

A bust of Cheif Little Turtle by Sufi Ahmad in the Flagstaff Bank Building at Wayne St. and Calhoun St.

As we prepare for Thanksgiving 2020 in an election year during a global pandemic that has exposed racial inequities, Fort Waynes few Native American sculptures are especially poignant. They exist in contrast to an army of General Mad Anthony Waynes.

Earlier this year, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage examined the culture wars brewing in Fort Wayne in a piece he wrote for Politico. He focused on Wayne Day, a new annual event honoring the citys namesake.

On one level, to grow up in Fort Wayne was to be saturated in references to Anthony Wayne and the Native Americans he fought, Savage writes. I opened my first savings account at a branch of Anthony Wayne Bank, across Anthony Boulevard from an ice cream parlor that served massive Mad Anthony sundaes.

Savage and I attended North Side High School, home of the former Redskins, recently renamed the Legends. His article revealed just how much my sense of my hometown was manipulated, right down to the visuals I absorbed every day.Garcias Little Turtle statue appeared in a photograph in Savages article, too.

Recently, I spoke to Garcia, now 86, in a series of phone conversations. He believes his sculpture of Little Turtle may be Fort Waynes first and only freestanding sculpture depicting the Miami chief.

Little Turtle was left out to dry, says Garcia, who has also created several renderings of Wayne, including a relief for Wayne High School.

A bust of Chief Little Turtle on the Main Street side of the Allen County Courthouse by Brentwood S. Tolan (1902).

Before Fort Wayne celebrated the nations bicentennial in 1976, the only sculptural reference Garcia found of the chief was a bust on the Allen County Courthouse.

Naturally, Wayne maintained a high profile in the city named for him. The most prominent works are the equestrian statue in Freiman Square and the smaller aluminum relief on Anthony Wayne Bank.

But in the summer of 1975, Garcia asked a pointed question to members of Fort Waynes American bicentennial committee: What about the other person in our history? As an answer, Garcia earned a commission to build an imposing statue honoring Little Turtle, whose real name was Mihihkinaahkwa.

Little Turtle led the Miami within a coalition of tribes that surrendered to Wayne in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. A year later, the Treaty of Greenville in 1795 resulted in the U.S. acquiring large tracts of land, including one piece six miles square, at or near the confluence of the rivers St. Mary's and St. Joseph's, where [F]fort Wayne now stands, or near it.

Knowing he could not stop the arrival of white settlers, Little Turtle encouraged his people to assimilate in order to survive. He died in the area in 1812. In 1846, U.S. troops forced approximately 300 souls out of northeastern Indiana by way of the canal boat network, according to a historic preservation officer representing the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.

The Miami people settled in Kansas until the U.S. government relocated them to Oklahoma in the 1870s. Today, the Miami population includes more than 5,800 enrolled citizens who are scattered throughout all 50 states and beyond, according to a historic preservation officer representing the Miami Tribe.A bust of John Nuckols by Hector Garcia (1985) inHanna Park at Maumee Ave. and Harmar St.

Garcia, a South Bronx native, is of Puerto Rican heritage. He wonders if growing up outside of Fort Wayne may have made him sensitive to people living on the margins. He also sculpted Jesuit Priest (1974), located near the Three Rivers Water Filtration Plant and John Nuckols (1985), a bust of Fort Waynes first African American city councilperson.

Garcias challenge with Little Turtle was to envision a likeness based on few existing images.

Through his observations of Native Americans and others who live close to the land, Garcia developed a composite sketch, an amalgam, of what Little Turtle might have looked like.

Forming the sketch model, which was about 2-feet tall, was sometimes emotional, not unlike a conversation. Garcia gave this early rendering a nickname: Turtle. Turtles prominent features included high cheekbones, a rectangular face, a strong jaw, and a proud chest.

The actual statue was more technical and required months of planning and execution. In the vacant Journal Gazette building on South Clinton Street, he first molded Chief Little Turtle with oil-based clay. A photograph from that time shows Garcia astride a ladder. His shoes are roughly the size of Little Turtles kneecaps.

Then he and his wife and children covered the massive figure with plaster to form a cast. Garcia drove the cast, divided into sections, to the foundry in Michigan. The completed work was revealed in a 1976 dedication ceremony that also honored the restored Canal House on E. Superior Street.

Over the years, Garcia has met a few Miami descendants. They thanked him for representing their history with a respectful statue.

Another sculptor, whom a few local artists describe as Garcias rival, was Sufi Ahmad. An art teacher at the University of St. Francis, Ahmad grew up in Lahore, Pakistan, and died in Fort Wayne in 2011.

Lenore DeFonso holds artwork by Sufi Ahmad.

Like Garcia, Ahmad had sculpted several busts of local leaders, including Little Turtle and Wayne, that appear in the rotunda of Flagstar Bank, ironically on E. Wayne Street. But Princess Mishawaka (1987), located in Mishawaka, stands out as especially unique. Based on an early American legend, Ahmads interpretation reveals an athletic woman with a regal bearing.

Ahmads partner Lenore DeFonso remembers how Ahmad made the large sculpture in the side yard of their home on Oakdale Avenue.

Its my favorite of Sufis pieces, DeFonso says. Its her pose and the way she sits on the rocks. She is reaching back for an arrow in her quiver. She looks like shes ready to deal with whatever comes her way.

A statue of Princess Mishawaka by Sufi Ahmad (1987) at Mishawaka City Hall.

Sadly, as Charlie Savage wrote in his Politico piece, Native Americans would continue to suffer under this countrys broken oaths and unfair treaties, even though Wayne had promised the rest of the territory would remain Indian land foreverhence Indiana.

And for generations, Waynes images have dominated a city that systematically removed its earliest citizens.

Read more:
Fort Wayne's culture wars seen anew this Thanksgiving through statues - inputfortwayne.com

Spring 2020 was an extraordinary moment in time for the National Trust. We had to close for the first time in our 125-year history. I was hugely relieved when we were allowed to reopen in May, at a time when the nation was desperately in need of access to green space, fresh air and nature. Since then, we have welcomed millions of visitors. Despite the complications that come with keeping places open safely, they have been profoundly kind, co-operative, and patient.

But away from the green spaces and open skies, our national debate is anything but that breath of fresh air. At a time when we most need understanding and tolerance, some of our oldest institutions have become a battleground in the so-called culture wars.

In organisations such as the National Trust, which millions of people care about and some of our fiercest critics are those who care a great deal there will always be disagreement about how progress is to be made. We welcome debate thats part of being a membership organisation. But the polarisation of views and quality of debate right now feels different.

The Trust is custodian of so much that is great about this country art, architecture, history, landscapes, nature and wildlife. Its one of Britains greatest success stories. Other countries depend on the state to cherry-pick and protect their heritage. The Trust, as an independent charity, cares for a whole panoply of sites of national pride from where Magna Carta was sealed to the White Cliffs of Dover.

While we stay out of politics, organisations like the Trust can also be instrumental in supporting national policies. We are creating or restoring 25,000 hectares of habitat for nature by 2025, directly contributing to goals set out in the Governments 25 Year Environment Plan. When it comes to creative exports, our places have been host to some of the biggest blockbusters filmed in the UK, from Star Wars to Game of Thrones.

In recent months I have had many hundreds of letters and emails expressing all kinds of views about the many decisions we make every day from passionate support to vicious threats. Its the same on social media.

But the vast majority of our 5.6 million members have been engaged elsewhere. They are the real silent majority. When I am out and about at National Trust sites they are not arguing about the Trust. They are there to enjoy their surroundings. They are giving their volunteer hours to the conservation of our shared heritage.

Upsetting anyone is a matter of regret for me. Our founders wrote that we exist for the benefit of the nation. I take that seriously and I would never want anyone to feel at odds with an institution that is there to serve them. The Trust indeed any cultural organisation should be a place where people can find common ground. A place where debate can be had without rancour.

We damage or turn away from our shared spaces and cultural institutions at everyones peril. To recover from this oppressive pandemic we will need more than scientific genius. We will need art and culture, parks and wilderness. We will need to wonder again at the world around us. Above all we will need co-operation, calm and kindness.

Hilary McGrady is Director General of the National Trust

See more here:
The National Trust is more than a battleground for the nation's culture wars - Telegraph.co.uk

Next Monday, the U.S. bishops will begin their annual plenary meeting with a big difference: Due to COVID-19, they will not be gathering as they have in recent years at the Marriott Waterfront hotel in Baltimore, but will hold a virtual meeting spread over two days.

COVID-19 is not only changing the manner of their convocation, it should also inform the recalibration of the bishops' stance toward the culture, a recalibration that should be the central focus of this year's meeting.

Last spring, the bishops like most Americans did what was asked of them. We suspended in-person liturgies. We went without the solemn celebrations of Holy Week. We closed our schools. In many cities, bishops and other clergy developed better relations with their civic leaders as all saw the clamant necessity of combating this horrific threat to the common good. When we all started reopening our society, we did so cautiously and in concert with public health requirements.

In short, the bishops learned something about the common good, about what we owe to one another, and how, in a pluralistic society, the common good can be sought even while enormous differences on issues remain.

As the bishops prepare to welcome a new administration in Washington, they need to be guided by that concern for the common good and abandon the culture-warrior approach that has plagued their public posture for too long.

President-elect Joe Biden is now the most prominent Catholic in the country. He speaks powerfully about how important his faith is to him, usually in the context of the monstrous suffering he endured, losing his wife and daughter in a car accident, and then his adult son to brain cancer. He also ran a campaign that highlighted some of the pillars of Catholic social teaching human dignity, the common good, solidarity and he did so explicitly. He is not coming at the bishops looking for a fight.

Yes, from a Catholic perspective, the president-elect is grievously wrong in his support for liberal abortion laws. We Catholics are rightly horrified whenever any group of people, no matter how powerless, is denied legal protection. The taking of innocent human life is wrong no matter the circumstance. But how a politician approaches the issue of abortion is not the only thing to know about them.

Biden is a man of decency who is wrong, not an indecent man, and if the bishops welcome his presidency in the same nasty, combative way they welcomed that of President Barack Obama, they will live to regret it. They need to abandon the zero-sum, legalistic approach they have followed in recent years, as if the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is an arm of the Becket Fund.

They should look to lower the temperature in the culture wars and reach some accommodations with the Biden administration on the issues where they disagree with the president and work together on the many, many issues about which a Democratic administration is much closer to the teachings of the church than the outgoing administration was, starting with immigration and climate change policy. If they don't, many of the next generation of Democrats will continue to put the words religious liberty in scare quotes and prioritize abortion rights above those rights enumerated in the First Amendment.

Of course, no issue will hang over this meeting like the McCarrick report. Some of their brethren were not candid when they were consulted about Theodore McCarrick's misdeeds by the nuncio, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, in the spring of 2000. It was ridiculous to think an inquiry of McCarrick's protgs constitutes an investigation, but that does not let those bishops, now deceased, off the hook in terms of assigning moral responsibility for McCarrick's rise.

The system failure the report catalogues was comprehensive but, like all such failures, needed only one or two brave, fiercely honest bishops to stand up and say, "No." All the bishops need to pledge themselves to act responsibly in the implementation of sex abuse policies, no matter who gets ensnared in any allegations and investigations.

One of the issues that the report minimizes is money. We may never know if there were bustarellas involved in the McCarrick episode: The reason crooks use cash is because you can't trace it.

But we know that McCarrick was the principal actor at the Papal Foundation, which raises money from big donors for papal charities. The entrance fee is $100,000 to become a member, but you get to go to Rome every year and meet the pope. Before his downfall, McCarrick accompanied the group each year. You can guess whether it was the access or the charity that animated McCarrick the most. The Papal Foundation should be shut down. McCarrick may be gone, but the modus operandi remains the same.

Another aspect of the money issue is that McCarrick took large checks from people and deposited them in accounts he alone controlled. Bishops should only, repeat only, accept checks for the diocese or a legal nonprofit with a board of directors like Catholic Charities. All such boards should have laypeople as well.

McCarrick was never one to spend money on fancy food or clothes. He only craved power. The ability to spread money around Rome or Poland was surely done with an eye toward his ecclesial advancement.

The bishops might also discuss with the nuncio how we could improve the consultation process that determines whether or not a candidate is suitable to become a bishop or be promoted to a larger see.

Before 1893, there was no apostolic delegate in the U.S. to compile ternas (lists of candidates) for vacant sees. The process of naming a new bishop began with a first consultation that involved the priests of a diocese, who gathered and compiled a terna of three names that was sent to the metropolitan. He, in turn, convoked a meeting of all the bishops of the province and they also prepared a terna. Both lists were sent to the Propaganda Fide office in Rome where the final terna was crafted for presentation to the pope.

Why not bring back this process, and include a terna from the nuncio? There is no guarantee it would have prevented someone like McCarrick from being named a bishop, but it might have. Besides, wider consultation might prevent other types of disastrous appointments: McCarrick is not the only bishop to have ruined a diocese, and sexual crimes are not the only form of episcopal malfeasance.

The conference of bishops is deeply divided, as is the nation. But they also share uniquely powerful bonds upon which to draw if they get serious about rebuilding communion, a communion to which they are pledged by their oath of office and the church's theology about the office of bishop. That oath and that office, as well as the facts that they are all men of a certain age, all received similar training, all spend their days saying the same prayers and reading the same Scriptures, all these should make it somewhat easier for them to find a basis for renewed communion. They could provide a model for the rest of the country.

If the bishops sincerely wish to try to build communion one with another, they will also need a shared goal. The experiences of 2020 point toward the obvious candidate. COVID-19 has exposed the way poverty and race afflict our health care delivery system. The summer of protests highlighted the systemic racism that continues to afflict our culture and our society, denying Black Americans opportunities the rest of us take for granted. Poverty remains the greatest abortifacient in our society. The election pointed to the limits of politics at this moment of time. What can unite these different experiences?

Just last month, Fr. Michael McGivney, founder of the country's most famous mutual aid society, the Knights of Columbus, was beatified. The bishops should commit the entire church in the U.S. to addressing poverty and racism for the next few years, not only by lobbying for certain policies from the government, although that is essential. Not only through statements that invite reflection and conversion, although those can help.

No, the bishops need to start by examining our own institutions, from parishes to schools to hospitals, to see how they can be used to provide a hand up to those on the margins of society, using the 19th-century mutual aid societies as a model. Such an effort would not only align the church in the U.S. more closely with the Gospel, but it might help bishops, the church and the society overcome the divisions that plague us.

[Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR.]

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Originally posted here:
US bishops need to recalibrate their stance toward the culture - National Catholic Reporter

When it comes to places in the world to raise happy and fulfilled children, one country constantly tops the rankings. Almost every year, a new book, article, or report touts The Netherlands as a child-rearing utopia, with the U.N. in September rating the country the best in the industrialized world for kids well-being.

But it is also a place where one of the pure joys of childhoodChristmasis tainted for many kids across the country. As the nights draw in, The Netherlands prepares for the arrival of Sinterklaas, a Dutch amalgamation of St Nicholas and Santa. Accompanying him are his helpers, the Zwarte Pieten or Black Petes, traditionally portrayed by white people as buffoons in full blackface complete with oversized lips and Afro wigs.

Collecting candy from the Black Petes is a rite of Dutch childhood, but one from which many Black children feel excluded. I do not enjoy it very much, says Yano, 9, wriggling in the protective embrace of his mom. It reminds me too much of slavery and my dad is Black, so I know the history of slavery, and that makes me very sad around those holidays when Zwarte Piet is there.

Yanos momwho declined to give her name because of the potential repercussions of speaking out against this hallowed Dutch traditiontries to shield Yano from the racist caricature. Whenever she hears the jokey music which accompanies the Black Petes, she steers Yano in another direction. Since he was small, she has kept him out of school on the day the Black Petes visit in early December.

But this year, for the first time, Yano will be attending his classes on Dec. 5. After more than a decade of work by local anti-racism activists, and a summer during which the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. reverberated around the world, the Netherlands is finally rethinking its dedication to Black Pete. Along with many other school boards, cities and municipalities, Yanos school has agreed not to feature the figure in their celebrations. His mother, who had long lobbied for its removal, says the killing of George Floyd in the U.S. and its aftermath made the need for change undeniable. One man had to die and the whole world was protesting, and I think the school opened their eyes a little bit, she says.

The fight over Black Pete has exposed a deep rift in Dutch societybetween those who see glaring inequalities for the countrys minority population, and those who believe firmly that their tolerant and liberal society offers equality to all. It all boils down to the image that this country haswe are one of the happiest countries in the world and Im like, who are you asking? says Jerry Afriyie, a poet, activist, and a leading figure behind the Kick Out Zwarte Piet campaign. If you go to the Black community and do the same research, you are going to find something different.

An Amsterdam Public Library employee with a book about Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) in Amsterdam, on Nov. 12, 2020.

Ramon Van FlymenANP/AFP/Getty Images

Afriyie learned about the prejudices in the Dutch system early. Aged 11, he moved to The Netherlands from Ghana, and was placed in a technical high school for less academically gifted children after taking a standard test which did not take into account his school record in Ghana nor the fact he had only been speaking Dutch for a few months. It left him with a sense of injustice, which grew as he got older and noticed that the schools management and most of the teachers were white, while most of the kids were not.

When he graduated, he started the Soul Rebel Movement, aimed at empowering Black communities. It was meant to be global, but as Afriyie spent time speaking with Dutch children from minority backgrounds, he realized there were plenty of problems at home.

They were saying this is not my country, Afriyie says. Im talking about children who are born here, speak Dutch, dont know anything else. Yet they say they are not Dutch. And the only thing different about them is the color of their skin.

Given the Dutch history of colonialism in Asia, Africa and the Americas, and a relatively liberal labor migration policy, around a quarter of the Dutch population of 17 million were born abroad or have at least one parent born abroad. Around 700,000 people are of African descent.

The stories of discrimination Jerry heard are not uncommon in a country where white families still talk with unashamed disdain of Black schools when referring to establishments in which more than 60% of the children are from a non-white background. The United Nations special rapporteur on racism, , E. Tendayi Achiume, visited the Netherlands last year and found that in many areas of life the message is reinforced that to be truly Dutch is to be white and of western origin.

As Afriyies goals crystallized, he knew where he had to startone of the most visual manifestations of Dutch institutional racism. People would tell me that it is nearly impossible to change this country, but the one thing you cannot change is Zwarte Piet, he explains. If you can change Zwarte Piet, you can change everything.

The Dutch debate over Black Pete finds echoes in the U.S. culture wars over symbols like Aunt Jemimas syrup and Uncle Bens rice, where large swaths of white Americans see only the nostalgia linked to the characters and not the links to racism and slavery. To his defenders, Black Pete is harmless fun, and efforts to get rid of him are part of a broader effort to wipe out Dutch history, culture and tradition. Supporters argue that he is not based on a person of African descent, and his black face comes from squeezing down sooty chimneysa theory that does not account for the red lips, gold hoop earrings and black, curly hair.

Critics and academic researchers say he is a throwback to slavery, an embodiment of the Dutch history of colonialism and oppression. Black Pete emerged in his current form in a book published in 1850, in which Sinterklaas has a Black servant. This portrayal came a decade before the Dutch abolished slavery in their colonies of Suriname and the group of Caribbean islands then known as the Dutch Antilles.

Dutch anti-discrimination activist Jerry Afriyie (C), leader of the 'Kick Out Zwarte Piet' (Kick Out Black Pete) movement, during a protest in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, on Nov. 23, 2019.

Lauren van PuttenHollandse Hoogte/Redux

The arrival of Sinterklaas in mid-November is marked in a televised national parade in which the serene and saintly white man aloof atop his white horse parades through cities as his clownish servants appear in blackface, swaggering on foot alongside. In the three weeks that follow his arrival, the Black Petes are inescapable; they are in shopping malls, in the streets, at businesses. The festivities end on Dec. 5, when Sinterklaas and the Black Petes leave gifts in childrens shoes and visit schools.

Those three weeks are particularly difficult for the Black community. Afriyie says he is regularly chased down the street by children shouting Zwarte Piet. Kymane, a 10-year-old boy from the south of the Netherlands, recalls the taunts of other children. When I was little, people were thinking I was in blackface, but I wasnt, he explains. I said I wasnt, but they were still just going yes you are, yes you are and I didnt like that. When he has tried to speak out against Black Pete, he says, other kids bullied him: [They said] just let us do our traditionif you dont like it, go back to your own country.

Its this kind of hatred that inspired Afriyie to launch the Kick Out Zwarte Piet campaign with other activists in 2011. Each year increasing numbers of people have joined peaceful protests at the Sinterklaas parades, only to be met with increasing violence.

Afriyie has been arrested three times and has been subjected to police brutality. A video from 2014 shows four officers holding him down as he screams I cant breathe. In 2016, police pulled Afriyie from a bus and beat him with batons. But the police have not shown the same heavy-handed tactics with the pro-Black Pete groups. A confrontation in Eindhoven in 2018 was captured on video. A crowd of white men scream racist chants and pelt Afriyie and other activists with eggs. The police stand by and watch.

Aggressive police tactics against minority communities in the Netherlands have been documented by the group Controle Alt Delete, which found that people from non-Western migrant backgrounds are more than five times more likely to be suspected of a crime, and more than 10 times more likely to be jailed. Afriyie was fined 500 euros for resisting arrest for the incident in 2014, and the criminal record meant he lost his job in security.

He faces a constant stream of hate mail, he says, along with explicit death threats against him and his family, and daily racial abuse on social media. But no one has ever been prosecuted for the campaign against him, nor has he been offered any police protection. Sometimes he feels exasperated at the suffering he is expected to endure to try and expose the institutional racism. Black people have to go through more injustice then we already faced for us to be believable, he says. You really literally have to put your life on the line.

But each year, he felt something start to shift. Change was coming.

On June 1 this year, Afriyie and his fellow activists stood on the stage at Dam Square in Amsterdam, amazed as the area filled with thousands of people who had turned out for a demonstration against racism in The Netherlands, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. George Floyds death had galvanized racial justice movements all over the world, but still Afriyie had not expected such a huge showing. He listened rapt as members of his community took to the stage to talk about their experiences of racism in the Netherlands. At least 80 percent of those people spoke publicly for the first time, he says.

The weeks that followed brought an avalanche of change. Prime Minister Mark Ruttewho in 2014 had laughingly defended Black Pete and joked about his own experiences wearing blackfacefinally admitted the character caused harm and the Netherlands had a problem with racism. For the first time, a poll showed only a minority of Dutch people wanted to keep the traditional appearance of Black Pete, with the figure supporting full black face falling from 71% in 2019 to 47%. In August, Facebook and Instagram banned images of Black Pete, while the Dutch online shopping giant Bol said it would no longer sell paraphernalia with its likeness. In late October, Google became the latest company to ban any images of Black Pete which promote racial stereotypes.

The debate has even grabbed the attention of well-known Americans. Kim Kardashian West had already called out the tradition in late 2019, labeling it disturbing and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson wrote to Rutte in June this year to urge him to end the offensive relic of colonial times.

Supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and of Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) activist group at a protest in The Hague, on June 20, 2020.

Remko de WaalANP/AFP/Getty Images

Sjaak Koenis, a philosophy professor at the University of Maastricht who studies the relationship between politics and culture, says such outside interventions helped people understand how racism should be defined by those who suffer it, not those who perpetrate it. Its very difficult for people to realize that their intentions of not being a racist dont really matter, he says. In that sense the international atmosphereand also the sheer success of Black Lives Matterthat does have an effect on the Dutch public debate.

Afriyie is careful not to attribute all the change to the Black Lives Matter movement. Such a swelling of support could not have happened without years of awareness-raising in schools, communities and the media by the Kick Out Zwarte Piet collective. The campaign had already made huge progress. In 2017, Amsterdam removed the traditional Black Pete from their parade. They replaced him instead with a character called Sooty Pete, whose complexion is flecked with smears of gray to follow the narrative of the character climbing down chimneys. Last year the national paradewhich changes its host city every yearsaid they would no longer include the racially offensive representations of the figure.

Even after the shift in public sentiment this year, the battle is far from won. Afriyie worries that many places will make small cosmetic changes to the Black Pete character simply to avoid criticism. And while 45 Sinterklass parades including all the major cities have announced they will remove blackface, there are around 600 parades of varying sizes across the Netherlands.

The COVID-19 pandemic also means most parades will not happen this year, and the large protests that Afriyie hoped to organize will not take place. Then there are systemic problems that cannot be solved in a matter of months, for example in an education system that Amsterdam University Professor Maurice Crul says segregates minorities when children are still in their diapers. His research shows people from migrant backgrounds are around twice as likely to be unemployed, even when they graduate with the same level of education as a white child.

Afriyie is ready to seize the momentum of this seismic year and channel it into a broader civil rights movement to address systematic racism at every level, from increasing education on Dutch slavery and colonialism to tackling bias in the employment market. The time has come for this country to face the realities of minority communities, he says. After a detailed consultation with people from different communities around the country, Afriyie and other activists will bring a concrete plan of action to the government, which has already started talks with the activists.

And come Dec. 5, at least one child will be feeling the effects of that long struggle for change. Nine-year-old Yano will walk into school without being confronted by a leering character representing the worst of his countrys history. I feel good, he says with an excited grin. Im very curious about how the school celebrates the Sinterklass day.

There is still some way to go before all kids can share in the Dutch dream of an equal and tolerant society. But at that moment, a smile spreading across his face, Yano looks exactly how we imagine kids should in a country with the happiest children in the world.

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Excerpt from:
The Fight Over 'Black Pete' Brings a Reckoning on Racial Equality in the Netherlands - TIME

Executive Summary:

Many have said that the workplace tends to be societys battlefieldwhere culture wars play out and emerging trends go up against long-established ones. This notion holds true with the controversial issue of hair in the workplace that has been brought to the forefront of this battle in the past year and a half via the CROWN Act. The CROWN Act (which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair), prohibits discrimination based on natural hair style and texture. Variations of this bill have been introduced in 29 states and even at the federal level. Now more than ever, employers must look at several federal, state, and local lawswhich are constantly changing to keep up with societal viewsto ensure their employee handbooks and appearance policies are non-discriminatory and overall legal. Therefore, while employers have traditionally created professional appearance standards to include the banning of certain hairstyles (such as cornrows, braids, twists, dreadlocks, etc.), employers could now be facing potential litigation for those same policies.

Please see full Publication below for more information.

Read more:
The CROWN Act: Protecting Natural Hairstyles - A Root to End Overview for Employers on Hair Discrimination Laws - JD Supra