A/74/274 provides a historical account of Ona Judge, a woman who escaped slavery under George Washington and lived out her days as a fugitive, which suggests that contrary to the misrepresentations of popular stereotype, quite a different reality existed for those enslaved by the man regarded as a founding father of the United States. 31 38. The depiction of Africans and their descendants as servants/enslaved is an enduring caricature which is rooted in the history of enslavement and colonialism. This representation continues and is visible in the Black Pete (Zwarte Piet) tradition, which is a highly offensive visual misrepresentation of Africans and people of African descent. 39. The Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas) festival is an important cultural tradition in the Netherlands and Belgium. Zwarte Piet is nearly always a white man or woman in blackface with big, rouged lips, a tight curly wig, brightly coloured pantaloons, a big ruff and gold earrings. At its core, this tradition relies on an old -fashioned, offensive caricature of a black man in servitude. Zwarte Piet as an expression of racis m and discrimination is related to enslavement and stereotypes Africans and people of African descent in image and behaviour, not unlike the tradition of blackface and minstrelsy of the past. Furthermore, it reinforces the unequal power relations between the characters of Zwarte Piet and Sinterklaas. The Working Group is acutely aware that a large segment of the population may not consciously understand that the tradition of Zwarte Piet annually reifies racist tropes about people of African descent grounded in colonization, exploitation and stereotype and that it is perceived as hurtful by some in Dutch society. In the view of the Working Group, this is a symptom of the denial of the existence of racism and racist practices and an erroneous understanding of history. 40. There can be no justification for the use of blackface. Its use is steeped in centuries of racism. Blackface was used, and continues to be used, to denigrate people of African descent. As the historian David Leonard states, the use of blackfa ce “allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human”. 32 Its continued use by politicians, professional athletes and celebrities, whether on college campuses across the globe, at Halloween parties or during cultura l events, is part of a toxic culture of racism that pervades the global landscape. 41. Dehumanizing depictions of people of African descent are not restricted to regions or societies with a legacy of trafficking in enslaved Africans. Recently, the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, China, ran an exhibition called “This is Africa”, where images of people of African descent were juxtaposed with images of wild animals. In one particular exhibit, a child with his mouth wide open was paired with a gorilla. Other sets paired a man and a lion, both gnashing their teeth, and a man and a baboon. In its 2018 Annual Spring Festival Gala, China ’s national television broadcaster, China Central Television (CCTV), produced a play about the growing ties between China and African countries called “Celebrating together”. The play featured a Chinese actress in blackface with exaggerated features, and beside her a man dressed as a monkey. 42. Black women, too, have long been caricatured by negative stereotypes rooted in a history of racism and enslavement. Monique W. Morris, in her book Pushout: the Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, 33 states that black women and girls must often navigate through a landscape that reinforces multidimensional stereotypes and __________________ 31 32 33 12/22 Erica Dunbar Armstrong, Never Caught: the Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge (37 Ink, 2017). See Alex Clark, “How the history of blackface is rooted in racism”, History.com, 15 February 2019. Available at https://www.history.com/news/blackface-history-racism-origins. Monique W. Morris Pushout: the Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (New York, The New Press, 2016). 19-13272