Tag: column

Blackface: how a nation goes nuts

I don’t care about Blackface. That’s odd, since I usually have a rather clear opinion about anything. Still, although everyone goes wild on Blackface, I can’t be bothered. Yet, I do have an opinion on people who have an opinion on Blackface.

I believe that people who bother about Blackface are lacking something in their lives. Some real problems to worry about, like they have in Raqqa, for instance. Perhaps people who bother about Blackface should go to Syria and do some reconstruction labour. And have a decent reconciliation shag.

People who believe that Blackface means racism, are troubled. People who believe being traumatized by slavery, 154 years after its abolition, are nuts. I might as well hate the Germans for demolishing my village in WW2, only 77 years ago.

Yet, people who are pro-Blackface can be as pathetic. A picture of Saint Nicholas with a swastika on his hat is all around the internet. Some pro-Blackface activist got a sheet of paper, stole his child’s pencils and made a drawing of a children’s hero with Hitler’s face.

Is that pathetic? It sure is. Is it bad? Well, drawing can have this therapeutic effect: not bad. A fool making an ugly drawing is hardly worse than a fool making himself a cup of tea. In the old days, his drawing would never have left the kitchen table of this miserable creature.

It did get bad though through all these angry people on social media, tweeting and retweeting that poor drawing from the kitchen table into the entire world. Burning oil should never be extinguished with water, since water spreads the fire. The lonesome pro-Blackface activist is a drop of oil. All these angry twitter-people are water. Thanks to their tweets and retweets, the miserable hatred of a frustrated loner gets a huge stage. Through their social platforms, racial polarization reaches the next level. Our right populist politicians are most grateful.

Burning oil should not be extinguished with water, but covered with sand. Or else, let it burn until it stops.

Blackface? Bury the discussion.

A Day at the Beach

strand katwijk zomerAt some 18 kilometers out, there’s a group of wind turbines. Visual pollution, according to some, mostly beachclub owners and hotelkeepers. But spending a summer’s day at the Katwijk beach will teach you that the real pollution is a lot closer by than those hardly visible turbines.

“Do you serve fresh orange juice?”
“Certainly, sir,” the waiter nods. He enters my order in his smartphone and walks to the bar. I lean backward and start observing the smoking and sweating crowd. Although it’s fairly AM, all seats of Beachclub 14 are taken. It’s Sunday and the weather report promised temeratures well beyond 30 degrees Celsius for this afternoon. Next to me, I notice a group of mid-aged men. Hard to tell what brought them together; I don’t believe they’re heart surgeons. But they do have something in common: they all, all ten, now I count them, a large collection of tattoos on their massive bodies. I try to read the pictures and words. Runic and gothic letters, chinese characters: cultural reconciliation starts on the bodies of simple minds. One of them has a massive stetson-wearing scull covering his back. Between his mates shoulder blades I perceive some creature even Tolkien and J.K. Rowling could not have invented after a night on booze and drugs.

“Fresh juice, sir.” The waiter puts a glass on my table. I say thanks, take out the straw and take a sup. Is this what they call fresh juice? If you would put this in a spectrometer, the screen would show a Minute Maid commercial. Or rather, some budget brand. I check the menu once more: it really says ‘fresh’ orange juice. Besides, at this price (4,75 euros) you’d expect the club’s owner to squeeze the oranges at your table, his wife rubbing your shoulders with coconut oil and the local bigband playing your favourite music live at your table.

But I don’t believe the boss is in today. He must be attending some kind of workshop, learning what music is appropriate at beachclubs. The boom-boom-crap from the outside speakers is hardly standable. Is this their way to empty tables for new customers as quickly as possible? One thing is for sure: it doesn’t help getting rid of the heart surgeons. They swing their sweaty bodies to the music, waving their beer bottles and cigarettes in the air. Only then I realise the music is not from the beachclub’s speakers, but from their gettoblaster. Beachclub 14 is tough enough to charge me 4.75 for a tiny glass of Minute Maid, but for a bunch of tattooed drunk, they switch off their own music.

I decide that I’ve seen enough. I pay for my Minute Maid and even tip the child that served it, since I know that from all beachclubs around, the wages here are by far the lowest. I down what’s left of my juice and head for the beach. Like at the beachclub, the people here are kind enough to share their tobacco and music with me. But at least, it’s not as loud as the gettoblaster of the cardiologists.

After a while, I hardly perceive it any more, because a massive speedboat starts running in circles just in front of me. The skipper, who looks like a perfect match with the cardiologists, misses some swimming kids only by meters. The life guard looks away, though. Only 75 years ago, brave men used this very beach as a starting point for their 150 km crossing to England in small canoes, risking being shot by german patrol boats. This guy takes himself for a hero revving around in a floating moped.

I grab my things and go home. Perhaps I’ll come back tonight for a walk on the beach, when only their empty beer cans, filled nappies and cigarette butts are left.
I can’t wait for autumn to come.