Six to eight black men - part 2 of 3

[deathmonkey123]

The best part of this is the wording.. It's so funny.

[vickbond008]

Santa doesn't speak Spanish? I'll have to tell my Mexican friends who spoke Spanish to Santa back home.

[Sharayai]

Santa was a  slave owner!

[brasman8]

What about 60 to 800 black men

[dannydemunk97]

The Santa Claus is stolen by the American people from Sinterklaas.

Greetz, Some Dutchies

[BakjeLeip]

@dannydemunk97 That's true! The story of Santa Claus actually started as a Coca-Cola marketing idea, inspired by the Dutch Sinterklaas.

[darknessofkrish]

3:01 GARY COLEMAN! Makes sense now why people would think it was elves...

[diepiriye]

OK! American whites would barricade the doors and set up a lynch mob.

[jammastertyty]

He may be one of the funniest people of all time.

[hootowlholler]

Hysterical!

[bscondict]

Santa needs some jodhpers ,riding lessons and a helmet next Christmas ,please !

[nameofthepen]

@bscondict - and a blind horse probably would be a good idea, too. :D

[Drowfan]

"The words silly and unrealistic were redefined when I learned that Saint Nicholas travels with what was consistently described as six to eight black men." :DDDD

[vettemuziek]

i am dutch too and we make suprises but this makes everyone laugh in my house!!!but i think there are more than 200 black man. :)

[lugeperson]

In Southern Germany they have devils night, where saint nick would comes Krumpus, guys where dressed in goat fur and wooden mask and go around whipping the sins out people. And these guys aren't nice age 12-60 are fare game.

[kralle7611]

as zwarte piet beats kids with branches, so does the central/southeastern european "Krampus". he is a winter demon going with st. niklas. in germany there is a similar figure called "knecht ruprecht". in france there is "pere fouettard", in scandinavia there is the "julbok".... the duality of this custom (good figure/evil figure) is common troughout western and central europe.

[toomanyaccounts]

@kralle7611

And the figure usually either looks like a devil or is considered a demon. In Middle Ages the devil was represented as a black man.

[kralle7611]

@toomanyaccounts black as in dark as the night(=scary). not black of skin. europeans in the middle ages hardly ever saw black ppl not to mention they had no slaves. they were slaves themselves to their feudal knight. besides that, the custom has to go way back before medival time, my guess is celtic origins, that would also explain why the slavic peoples in general dont have this dual winter figures.

[Dufuxing]

It is interesting that the association of a black man with a former slave is exclusively an American prejudice. This asscociation simply does not exist in Western Europe, where the sight of an African was in mainly foreign, unknown, and mysterious.

[toomanyaccounts]

@Dufuxing

Ah the stories of the helper in Dutch do state he was a slave from Africa.

[mrfoxtalbot]

"Tapaz"?

It´s "Tapas"!

[tyredify]

@mrfoxtalbot He's making fun of the Spanish accent. The "s" sound occasionally is pronounced as a "th".

[mrfoxtalbot]

@tyredify I am spanish and I still don´t get it. Perhalps you mean the "z" letter which sounds like "th".

[GummiBear483]

@tyredify no, david sedaris actually has a lisp. he tells a story of it in "Me Talk Pretty One Day."

[3rdEYEbeHolder]

I stand corrected,

"Zwarte Piet", or the men in black face who are Sinterklaas's man-servants, are Moors, and actually represented indepence from Roman Catholic Popery and the Spanish Monarchy. Zwarte Piet is a Moor, a shamanic god actually, that represents the Dutches pre-Catholic pagan past.

[jazwaz112]

the "6-8" he continuously says never stops being funny

[jedwards0820]

Dude, you cut the best part of the chapter in half!

[Missbeansontoast]

Hilarious. Also, the images you added are funny too--"Your breast is very beautiful," LMAO!

[hommeau]

He gets so much of this wrong...it's a bit distressing. Zwarte Piet's black because he's a chimneysweep (the willow branches aren't switches; it's a chimneysweep's broom). The 6-8 number came about during WWII and was introduced by Canadians when they helped out with post-war reconstruction. The old songs only mention one Zwarte Piet for the most part.

[adrenalineflow]

@hommeau that's part of the point, though. He's making fun of Americans and their ignorance and tendency to misunderstand, so why not misrepresent the entire concept?

[bewlaybrutha]

this is the least funny shit i've ever experienced

[charlesdaenen]

get over the "racial" thing. This stuff is soo funny, I couldn't stop laughing the first time I heard it. Comedy is taken so serious at times

[carolmelancon]

The first time I heard this I was literally crying with laughter; my husband ran in from the next room to ask what was wrong. It took me a couple of minutes to get enough control to tell him I was laughing.

[ThePopups]

saint nicholas and christmas are 2 apart holidays in holland in belgium.. they have double feast

[bavvy]

OMG this is so funny.....

[konin525]

idd heel grappig :-)

[MickyNL]

This is so dumb.

Sinterklaas isn't the same guy as Santa Claus.

Just about all the Dutch people celebrate Christmas seperately from Sinterklaas.

[Deblijeegel]

He makes our tradition seem bad but it is really nice! he just makes everything bigger.

[tailsprower18]

thats what he gets paid for. comidians take little things and blow them out of proportion for laoughters sake. get a snce of humor. im gonna give us all enough credit to realise that we sholdent take a comidians sketch realisticly

[Kingleopoldthesecond]

Dutch and Flemish people, cut out your revisionist crap - If you want Zwarte Piet to look like he went in a chimney then smudge his face, not give him bright red lips, afro, and black facepaint. Its disgusting how you brainwash your children with this racist crap, but I guess you can't help it. You're just holding on to your last racist tradition so you can still feel superior to blacks. Theres a black president of the US now, get over it. PS I'm not American, but from another Western country.

[tailsprower18]

i belive that the outfit is modled after the acting group that dressed much in the same way during the equle rights movement. caracterizing the stereotype while at thesame time pushing for desegrigetoin. it was a means to an end.

[Kingleopoldthesecond]

Listen up kids, racist sterotypes are really cool  Im a white guy in blackface so it must be ok! Racist stereotypes are awesome!! Lets all dress up like Chinese - just tape your eyes back and put in some funny teeth - haaa soooo!!! Also, why don't we dress up like Jews with big horns and claws!!! Racism is great fun for kids. P.S Im not American, the rest of the Western world got rid of blackface because its racist. Do you like everyone to call you racist?

[Sparkart]

hilarious!

[coutterhill]

instead of being slaves, they were just good friends! Oh my! This is so funny

[Arcadefan419]

I would hate to see what dutch christmas movies look like lol

[my2livers]

Love the "tea cozy" and "tapa" comments!

[ajquirky]

OMG, he is a genius!!!!!

[Sara595]

"Hey mom, i got a baby" Merry x-mus

[martiniisgood]

Het heet ironie. Get a life.

[Phished123]

it is called humor

[lrthorne]

Wow....taking things a bit too seriously are we? Lighten up and enjoy it for what it is...you'll get a lot more out of life that way.

[Boredgalva]

Laughing at ourselves is the point.

[tiesthijsthejs]

let me guess, you vote for chauvenistic right-winged nationalists, right? Rita Verdonk and Proud of The Netherlands right?

the civil religion is an imagined community!

your identification is an attachment to a construct! lighten up, there is a cure! humour serves to break down the mental boundaries and confronts us with the funny irony of useless energy waste due to cranky moods!

[unsung1984]

thumbs up for the Benedict Anderson reference

[tiesthijsthejs]

haha!! you're totally right... I should made a reference... though i did not mean to sound like a show-off... but anyway, you're right...

[Kelvana]

I love the videos with it!

[Snowwhite881]

Americans are simply jealous at Holland ^^.

We have an old culture (what does America have ? Oh ya, war and oil ;>) We have legalized drugs, Sinterklaas AND Christmas. Much more freedom ] Holland pwns. '

Live with it you fat americans!.

Btw .. Video wasnt that funny at all :. and sometimes there's backgroundlaughing while there is no humor at all.

Fat(do I even have to mention?) americans are strange.

PEACE

[Webby1788]

fat, culturless, and arguably, the wealthiest and most power nation in the world. "Live with" it we can.

[Snowwhite881]

webby1788, wealthiest nation in the world? Soon Im gonna wipe my ass off with dollars cause toiletpaper will be more expensive.

[panne86]

omg snowwhite, please, common, why the hatefull comment man? I am dutch and I actually do think this was very funny!

[Phished123]

David Sedaris is an amazing essayist and humorist.

his essays are usually self-deprecating and rarely 'make fun' of anyone but himself.

this essay merely serves to poke fun at the differences between cultures as a lot of his humor is based in being an American in a "strange country"

[my2livers]

UR so right. I love "Me Talk Pretty One Day" et al. I can listen to him and read him over and over. And it never seems to get old.

[johnnyjolijt]

I am Dutch and as a kid I loved Sinterklaas, but this David Sedaris story is really funny!

[GITSVermeer]

This guy makes fun of a culture that is great and brings Joy to a lot of Children. All his points are not realistic or true. So it is actually a FACT that this documentaire is a cheap way of trying to be funny. BTW the public laughing sounds like a big overdub to me..

[cocolopez134]

i believe that i learned in the second grade (as well as you probably did too) that something isn't a fact unless it is concrete or can be proven...so the things you say are very much OPINION.

you are indeed entitled to your own opinion, but lighten up a little buddy, it's satire. it's supposed to poke fun at society. and if you think it comes off sounding mean i suggest you read one of his books, they have a completely different feel than the live version.

[pieps78]

And for the grown-ups: At Sinterklaas' time, (mainly funny sarcastic) poems are written for friends, in which their past year has been summarised.

[pieps78]

For those who are interested in Dutch folklore: Sinterklaas arrives in the Netherlands in Nov., on a steamboot from Spain. On Dec. 5, he mounts his white horse, gallops over the roofs of the Dutch houses & throws presents through the chimneys for the children (like letters made out of chocolate), & the children leave a carrot at the chimney as a present for the horse (if the children have been sweet-otherwise Sinterklaas kidnapps & takes them to Spain). His aids are Zwarte Pieten (Black Pete).

[tomhansonlover]

XD this guy is great. thanks for posting.

[hollandbovenaan]

you all copied from the dutch so dont talk shit about our culture...

[dbodiford]

This is all in good humour, with the idea in mind that American mythology about Santa Claus could be made fun of as equally ridiculous..

[BurnlnHell]

@dbodiford thats his argument. i love sedaris. 

[GITSVermeer]

THIS SUCKS!

[SaraBear666]

u suck!!!

[GITSVermeer]

At least we';ve got a culture. I can't help America has only two cultures... what was it called? Oh yeah: Oil & war.

[imalumpaheffaup]

thats..not an original thought. like, when you play the dozens, you can't say 'yo momma is so fat she cant fit her clothes'

you have to say

yo momma is so fat that when she walks, her thighs say to each other 'excuse me, no..excuse me...excuse me...sorry, excuse me'

see

to say america is the culture of war and oil isnt satyre

to say

the people must be drinking it as fat as they are

now that ish is funny.

[lucaboris]

Santa Claus comes from Sinterklaas

[Chinamerican]

Lordy, I lived with a Dutch flatmate as well as other Dutch people in our international community and this is true with a little bit of difference - Black Petes are actually supposed to be Turks I think but they used to come through the chimney/stove and got soot on their faces but they are not necessarily slaves. Our Santa Claus is based on Saint Nicolas reflecting the Dutch influence in early America (Peter Stuyvesant and New Amsterdam).

[dubhusain]

they've fudged the story over the yrs but the role of the petes actually represents the reclamation of spain from the rule of north african moors.

[Chinamerican]

Interesting. I always wondered why Sinterklass lived in Spain if he was the Bishop of Turkey.

[johnk348]

thank you for this.