Black Pete, King Balthasar, and the New Orleans Zulus: Can black make-up traditions ever be justified?

: Wearing black make-up to impersonate black individuals has become highly controversial in many countries, even when it is part of long-standing cultural traditions. Prominent examples of such traditions include Saint Nicolas celebrations in the Netherlands (which feature a black character known as “Black Pete” who hands out candy to children), Epiphany parades in Spain (which feature impersonations of the biblical king Balthasar who is traditionally portrayed as black) and the annual Zulu parade in New Orleans (which features impersonations of South African Zulu warriors). In this article, I challenge the widely held view that black make-up traditions are categorically wrong. Specifically, I argue that these traditions can be morally vindicated if (i) the large majority of individuals who help to maintain them do not believe that they denigrate black people; (ii) the relevant traditions do not depict black people in denigrating ways; and (iii) the relevant traditions are not gratuitously offensive. While the Dutch Saint Nicholas tradition fails to satisfy these conditions, the New Orleans Zulu tradition is found to satisfy them, as is the Spanish Epiphany tradition in certain cases. I end by identifying another set of conditions under which black make-up traditions might be morally justified. Abstract: Wearing black make­up to impersonate black individuals has become highly controversial in many countries, even when it is part of long­standing cultural traditions. Prominent examples of such traditions include Saint Nicolas celebrations in the Netherlands (which feature a black character known as “Black Pete” who hands out candy to children), Epiphany parades in Spain (which feature impersonations of the biblical king Balthasar who is traditionally portrayed as black) and the annual Zulu parade in New Orleans (which features impersonations of South African Zulu warriors). In this article, I challenge the widely held view that black make­up traditions are categorically wrong. Specifically, I argue that these traditions can be morally vindicated if (i) the large majority of individuals who help to maintain them do not believe that they denigrate black people; (ii) the relevant traditions do not depict black people in denigrating ways; and (iii) the relevant traditions are not gratuitously offensive. While the Dutch Saint Nicholas tradition fails to satisfy these conditions, the New Orleans Zulu tradition is found to satisfy them, as is the Spanish Epiphany tradition in certain cases. I end by identifying another set of conditions under which black make­up traditions might be morally justified.

As a young untenured scholar, I am proud to be contributing to this issue. I believe that the history of this article shows the need for this type of journal. The current paper was initially under review at a wellknown journal in moral and political philosophy. After the first round of comments, for which the editor of said journal had been able to find only one reviewer, (s)he wrote to me that (s)he was "keen to publish the paper" based on the reviewer's judgement that it was "an interesting paper on a very worthwhile topic" that offered 'plausible theoretical theses' and that was "heading in the direction of being a publishable piece". However, once I had submitted my revisions, which occurred after the start of the BLMprotests (which may or may not have had an impact on the subsequent events), the reviewer declined to review my revisions and the editor not only rejected the paper without revisions based on (what I thought was) a highly biased report by a new reviewer, but also told me that I "might want to reconsider trying to publish the paper" because of the "very real risk of causing unnecessary offence".

A Tale of Three Black MakeUp Traditions
The history of black minstrelsy shows in the United States 2 and Canada 3 is an ugly one. During the late 19th and early 20th century, it was common for predominantly white actors in the US and Canada to perform as caricatures of black people on stage. With their faces darkened with burnt cork, greasepaint, or shoe polish, they would depict this group as buffoonish and dimwitted in order to entertain their audiences. Part of this tradition's legacy is that the use of black makeup has become highly controversial within North America and increasingly within other parts of the world as well (this is true especially, but as we will see not exclusively, when it is white people who darken their skin).
The past decade has witnessed numerous black makeup scandals. Many of these involved politicians and celebrities who had painted their skin as part of costumes for Halloween, Purim, or themed parties. One might think of American actress Julianne Hough, who impersonated the black character Crazy Eyes from the Netflix series "Orange is the New Black" in 2013, as well as of French footballer Antoine Griezmann, who dressed up as an AfroAmerican basketball player in 2017. In other cases, the scandals involved the publication of pictures that showed highprofile individuals wearing black makeup in earlier decades. For example, in 2019, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam admitted to featuring in a medical school yearbook photo that showed one person in Ku Klux Klan robes and one person in black face paint, a confession he subsequently withdrew only to confess instead that he had painted his face with shoe polish in the 1980s as part of a Michael Jackson dancing contest. 4 Later that year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was confronted with photos that showed him wearing black makeup on different occasions during the 1990s and early 2000s, which included a photo of him dressed as Aladdin at a gala. 5 I discuss these cases in other work where I consider whether darkening one's skin as part of a personal costume is ever morally defensible. 6 My aim here is to consider whether doing so can ever be justified as part of a cultural tradition, which is a question that has not received any attention from philosophers. As the following examples illustrate, such traditions have sparked, and continue to spark, considerable controversy as well.
Black Pete: In August 2015, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination released a report in which it urged the Netherlands to get rid of the figure of Black Pete [Zwarte Piet], who is often played by white people who darken their skin and wear Afrowigs. Black Pete is an assistant of Saint Nicolas, a Catholic saint who arrives in Dutch, Belgian, and Antillean towns in late November in order to bring candy and presents to children. While there is ample evidence that Pete was intended to represent a black servant when he became part of Saint Nicholas celebrations during the 19th century, 7 the dominant narrative has become that his black complexion is due to him going up and down chimneys in order to deliver candy and presents inside children's homes. 8 In the eyes of the UN committee, however, he remains a morally unacceptable character, 9 a view that is shared by a growing minority of Dutch people, as well as by the municipal governments of cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam that have replaced their Black Petes for white Petes with soot smudges on their faces [socalled Roetveeg Pieten] in recent years. 10 King Balthasar: In January 2019, Spanish footballer Andres Iniesta sparked an outcry on social media after he had posted a picture of himself and two friends whose faces were painted black for Epiphany celebrations.

When Black MakeUp Traditions Are Morally Justified
Let us look in greater detail at the three conditions that I believe are jointly sufficient for rendering black makeup traditions morally defensible.

Immoral vs. Innocent Attitudes
The first condition is that the large majority of individuals who help to maintain black makeup traditions, whether by participating in their respective events or by helping to organise these events, do not believe that their local black makeup tradition denigrates black people. This condition is predicated on the assumption that the moral character of black makeup traditions is tainted when those responsible for their continued existence think that these traditions are demeaning to black people, as this means that said traditions will be kept alive by individuals who believe that black people are denigrated by their local black makeup tradition and who: I. support the tradition for that very reason; or who II.
are indifferent to the perceived denigration; or who III. regret the perceived denigration, but tolerate it as collateral damage.
Cases where black makeup traditions are maintained in order to denigrate black people (I) are clearly the most problematic from a moral perspective as they involve an endorsement of hostility towards a particular racialized group (which according to the influential volitional account of racism proposed by Jorge Garcia is sufficient to classify them as racist) 17 . However, there is also a failure to show due concern to black people when those responsible for sustaining black makeup traditions believe that these traditions denigrate black people but are simply indifferent to this (II). To see this, notice that, although there is no endorsement of hostility in such cases, the relevant agents still fail to acknowledge black people as individuals whose interests count morally. 18 Indeed, even when such perceived denigration is regretted but tolerated as collateral damage (III), moral principles are being flouted. The reason for this is that respect for other people's humanity is not something that can be permissibly traded off against other goods; instead, it ought be observed in every possible situation, which is a view that is central to many moral doctrines, including Kantian and Christian ones.
To be sure, when only small percentages of those responsible for maintaining black makeup traditions satisfy (I), (II), or (III), this does not seem to impugn the moral character of these traditions as a whole. If such small minorities had such power, then even traditions with the most laudable objectives would be morally unjustified when, and because, a tiny fraction of their participants and organisers had dubious motives for participating in them or for assisting in their organisation. For example, it would mean that an annual company charity run must be morally unjustified when, and because, a mere one percent of employees do not take part in this event to contribute to a good cause or to socialise with colleagues, but rather to derive sadistic pleasure from seeing a disliked colleague be lapped by fellow workers. Another implausible implication of setting the justificatory bar this high is that it renders it doubtful as to whether any morally defensible cultural traditions would remain. This is because, as a matter of statistical probability, any tradition with a reasonably large number of participants and organisers is likely to have some individuals whose participation or organisational contributions are driven by depraved motives. For example, in cities with public Christmas trees and nativity scenes, there might be some volunteers who help to set up these trees and scenes not so much because they want to spread the holiday spirit, but rather because they value the public display of Christian symbols as a way of signalling the supposed superiority of Christians over members of other religions.
By contrast, when almost all of those responsible for maintaining a given black makeup tradition satisfy (I), (II) or (III), this does appear enough to render the tradition morally unjustified. To deny this would have odd implications as well. For example, it would mean that for a mere 1% of these individuals to believe that the relevant tradition does not denigrate black people might compensate for the 99% who believe that it does and who are willing, and possibly more than willing, to tolerate this with all the disrespect that comes with such toleration (see my comments in the penultimate paragraph). However, if these observations are correct, then somewhere in between these extremes there exists a point where precisely enough participants and organisers of a black makeup tradition satisfy (I), (II), or (III) in order to render the tradition morally unjustified. Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint this percentage, my sense is that roughly 20-30% is needed.
What is pertinent for us is that the black makeup traditions examined in this article all seem to fall short of this threshold. This is perhaps most obvious as far as the New Orleans Zulu parade is concerned; given the United States' history of slavery and Jim Crowe segregation, it is highly unlikely that the black members of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club would use black makeup if they thought that this mocked their own race, let alone that they would encourage white paraders to do so. In addition to such abductive evidence, there exist large amounts of testimonial evidence that few, if any, of them believe that their parade involves such mockery. For instance, Jay Banks, a onetime Zulu king who is currently chairman of the club's board of directors, notes that "Blackface is pretending that black people are less than human; the black makeup that we wear has nothing to do with that", 19 which is a view that is echoed in the already quoted statement by the Zulu Club in which it was said that "nothing about the organization, including the black makeup, was ever intended to insult or degrade African Americans" but that, "to the contrary, Zulu has always been about celebrating African and African American culture". 20 Turning to the role of Black Pete in Dutch Saint Nicholas celebrations-call this the "Black Pete tradition" for short-I have mentioned already that the dominant narrative concerning Pete's blackness is that he is covered in soot as a result of going up and down chimneys in order to deliver candy and presents inside children's homes. The widespread acceptance of this narrative is mirrored in a representative national poll from 2018 in which 80% of respondents reported that they did not consider Black Pete to be a "racist phenomenon". 21 When we focus exclusively upon the proponents of the Black Pete tradition, this percentage is likely to be higher still. Now, those who believe that Black Pete portrays black people in a denigrating manner might retort that, deep down, most of his supporters know that this figure is offensive towards black people but are unwilling to admit this as this would require them to acknowledge that they are supporting a racist practice, which is something that is taboo within the Netherlands. My reply to this is that, while the claim about how black people are portrayed by Black Pete is correct (more on this in the next subsection), it is doubtful whether most Black Pete supporters, or even simply a large minority of them, actually perceive this character to be denigrating towards black people. thinking otherwise comes from a 2016 study among 207 Dutch children aged 5-7. In this study, which used a combination of openended questions and labelling exercises, it was found that, although the participating children "are clearly aware of Black Pete's skin color and subordinate status", they associate Black Pete "more with clowns than with black people". 22 According to the researchers, these findings provide good reasons for thinking that, like the children in this study, current Dutch adults have from early childhood onwards experienced Black Pete as "reminiscent of a clown rather than a real black person", which causes them to see this character as nonracist. 23 (For what it is worth, this hypothesis is consistent with my own childhood experiences; as a 13 year old, I was utterly perplexed when a friend of mine suggested to me that the Saint Nicholas tradition is racist, 24 and even after he had made the link between Black Petes and black servants, I thought that this was a farfetched and, indeed, perverse, interpretation of the tradition.) Further reasons for thinking that Black Pete supporters are generally sincere when they report that they do not perceive Black Pete to be racially offensive are provided by the widespread support that this character continues to enjoy on the DutchCaribbean island of Bonaire where the population is predominantly black and where Pete impersonators are in fact painted much darker than their EuropeanDutch counterparts (more on this in Section 4). The thought here is that, if it were very difficult, if not impossible, to see Black Pete as nonracist, one would expect Black Pete to be highly controversial among Bonaireans given that, for the large majority of them, it is their racialized group that is being ridiculed by this character.
Turning finally to the role of Balthasar in Spanish Epiphany parades-call this the "Balthasar tradition" for short-what we see is that, within various Spanish municipalities where Balthasar continues to be played by white individuals, the organisers of these parades have emphatically denied that this practice is disrespectful towards black people. 25 While it cannot be entirely ruled out in this case either that these denials merely reflect a desire not to be thought of as a racist, there is a nonsceptical explanation for them that seems more plausible. Whereas the blackness of Balthasar's skin can be explained by the fact that he is popularly known as a black African king within Spain and various other countries, 26 the fact that he is often played by white individuals in Epiphany parades can be explained by the custom of many Spanish municipalities to let local councillors perform this role who, mirroring Spain's demography, tend to be relatively lightskinned. (This rationale was invoked by, e.g., Ana Botella, former leader of Madrid's city council, before the city of Madrid decided in 2015 to reserve the role of Balthasar for black people; as she put it at the time, "if there was a black councilor, then we would have a black king".) 27

Degrading vs. Nondegrading Depictions of Black People
What I want to suggest next is that, even when those responsible for maintaining specific black makeup traditions do not believe that black people are being denigrated by their local black makeup tradition, such traditions remain morally problematic when they portray this group in denigrating ways as this fails to respect their members' dignity, apart from any instrumental harms that it might cause. 28 An analogy might be drawn with a young child giving the finger to a random person. As Joshua Glasgow observes, even when this child does not realise that raising his middle finger to a random person is disrespectful-perhaps he is just imitating a bad habit of his older brother-his doing so remains morally problematic within Western cultures given that it fails to respect the dignity of the person who is being flipped off. 29 Yet, if having denigrating features is sufficient to render a tradition morally problematic even when no disrespect is intended or even perceived by those responsible for its continued existence, then a second condition that many justifiable black makeup traditions will satisfy, though perhaps not all (more on this in Section 4), is that they do not depict black people in denigrating ways.
Some black makeup traditions fail to satisfy this condition. Consider the Black Pete tradition in the Netherlands. The dominance of the chimneysoot narrative notwithstanding (see the introduction), there are ample cues that Black Pete is representing a black servant and thereby depicting black people in a demeaning manner, which include: the fact that he has an afrowig (one does not grow afrohair just by going up and down chimneys); the fact that he has garish red lips and wears golden hoop earrings (which are attributes of black people on crude stereotypes); the fact that he wears a page costume; the fact that he became part of the Saint Nicholas tradition during the 19th century, a time when the Dutch were still active participants in colonialism and-for much of the century-slavery, which was not abolished until 1863. 30 By contrast, both the Spanish Balthasar tradition and the New Orleans Zulu tradition seem to satisfy the current condition. Consider first the Balthasar tradition; unlike the role of a servant, the role of a king is not only not a submissive one, but arguably one with a lot of prestige. This is true especially of the role of a wise king, as the three kings in Epiphany celebrations are also known as the Three Wise Men, a predicate that can be traced to a passage from the book of Matthew in which it is said that, after Jesus' birth, "wise men from the east came to Jerusalem" (Matt What is apposite for us is that this only shows that particular ways of impersonating this character are morally problematic, not that all ways are. Regarding the New Orleans Zulu parade, it is similarly difficult to see how this tradition would depict black people in a disrespectful manner unless one has already accepted that any use of black makeup is demeaning towards this group, which is what needs to be shown. Similar to the role of a king, the role of a Zulu warrior is not a submissive one. Furthermore, the fact that the New Orleans Zulus have white areas around their mouths and eyes (often around one eye) and wear colourful costumes means that they more closely resemble mythical figures than the black characters of North American minstrel shows to which they are frequently compared. 31 Another relevant difference between these traditions can be found in their respective origins; whereas minstrel shows were introduced by white people during the 19 th century in order to entertain white audiences at the expense of black people, 32 the Zulu parade was started by a group of black labourers from New Orleans in 1909 after they had attended a theatreplay about the South African Zulu warriors. 33 In addition to satisfying a desire to pay homage to their African ancestry and to AfroAmerican culture, 34 many scholars believe that dressing up as Zulus served subversive purposes within a racially segregated society in which black people were heavily oppressed. For example, according to Joseph Roach, the Zulu impersonations were a way to "make fun of white folks and the stupidity of their juryrigged construction of race". 35

Gratuitous vs. Nongratuitous Offence
Thus far, we have looked at two conditions out of a set of three that I submit are jointly sufficient for rendering black makeup traditions morally justified. According to the third and final condition of this set, the use of black makeup is not gratuitously (i.e., unnecessarily) offensive. In my understanding, such gratuitous offence exists if and only if (i) at least some people are offended by the use of black makeup, which here means that they experience certain negative mental states such as shock or anger, and (ii) its use could be abandoned with little loss, if any.
As far as (i) is concerned, it is clear that many places with black makeup traditions are home to individuals who are offended by these traditions. Evidence for this can be found among the campaign against Black Pete by the organisation, Kick Out Zwarte Piet; 36 the campaign against the use of black makeup in Epiphany parades by the Asociación Centro Panafricano; 37 and the campaign against the New Orleans Zulu parade by the antiConfederate statues organisation, Take 'Em Down NOLA. 38 There is also much anecdotal evidence for the existence of such offence. For example, Mitchell Esajas, one of the leading figures in the movement against Black Pete, has referred to the Saint Nicholas period as "one of the worst times to be in Holland because everywhere you go you are faced with this offensive Blackface". 39 Likewise, Daouda Dieye, a Senegalese street vendor who has lived in Catalonia for 12 years, describes how the use of black makeup by white Balthasar impersonators causes him to feel "angry, sad, and outraged", 40 whereas Kim Coleman, curator of the New Orleans' McKenna Museum of African American Art, notes how she has stopped attending the New Orleans Zulu parade because she finds the sight of white people wearing black makeup "disgusting". 41 Many more examples could be given.
What about (ii)? Regarding the Black Pete tradition in the Netherlands, it is sometimes argued that the use of black makeup is superfluous. Such arguments are usually based on two premises-namely, that the Saint Nicholas tradition is, or ought to be, a children's holiday, and that children are indifferent as to what skin colour the Petes have. 42 Whatever the merits of the first premise, it seems to me that the second premise is false. To see why, notice that Petes at domestic Nicholas celebrations are usually played by relatives or family friends, who will be much easier to recognise for children when their faces are not painted black. For the purposes of this article, however, I do not want to pursue this point further as the fact that Black Pete has racially denigrating features (see the previous subsection) is already enough to show that this character is morally problematic. Instead, I want to use the available space to focus on the New Orleans Zulu tradition and the Spanish Balthasar tradition.
With respect to the New Orleans Zulu tradition, what we find is that wearing black makeup is a central element of this tradition, which means that any offense that it causes cannot be gratuitous. Not only do members of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club attach great value to this practice, as exemplified by their fierce resistance to outside pressure to abandon it, 43 their use of black makeup has a long history going back to the beginning of the parade in 1909 when the first Zulu impersonators were too poor to afford masks and instead used paint in order to abide by the city's carnival rules (which required parade participants to hide their identities). 44 In fact, even the use of black makeup by white parade participants, which is believed to have started in the 1970s, has an important meaning for many members of the Zulu Club who have referred to it as an "exchange of culture" 45 and a "celebration of integration". 46 By contrast, the use of black makeup is not essential to the Balthasar tradition. If it were, then black Balthasar performers too would be expected to use black makeup in the same way that black Zulu paraders are expected to use it, which is not the case. What is essential to a tradition that revolves around three kings, however, is that the kings be easily distinguishable, which suggests that the use of black makeup has an important function when no black Balthasar performers are available. To see this, it should be noted that, unless one of the kings is painted black in such cases, telling them apart can be a challenge, especially from a distance, as the fact that they are all male characters with royal attributes such as crowns and mantles means that there are few other features to differentiate them (the main ones being that Caspar is usually depicted as an old man with a white beard and Melchior as a middleaged man with a red beard).
Some might reply that efforts could be made to ensure that a nonblack Balthasar looks different from his fellow kings. This may be achieved, for instance, by representing him as the only king without a beard. What is important for us is that, even if this solves the identificationproblem, failing to depict Balthasar as a black person would still have significant costs, as it would not only disrupt a tradition with a long history (since the Middle Ages, Balthasar has been represented as a black African king within Spain), 47 but also one that is valued by many Spaniards.
I believe that two inferences can be drawn from this. One is that, insofar as local black people are willing to play Balthasar in Epiphany parades, they ought to be given this role. Since white people would retain the opportunity to play one of the other two kings (which are roles for which they may need to be prioritised), denying the role of Balthasar to them does not appear unfair. This is true, I submit, even in cases where the three kings are traditionally played by local councillors and where there are no (willing) black councillors to play Balthasar. For even when allowing local councillors to perform these roles role is a way of acknowledging their public service, there will normally be black people among the wider population who have made important contributions to the city or town as well, such that the reasons for denying the role of Balthasar to them do not seem particularly strong. (Accordingly, I take it that Madrid's city council made the right decision in 2015 when, instead of having a nonblack city councillor play Balthasar, it awarded this role to a local black person who was not a city councillor.) 48 What if there are not any black people among the local population or simply no ones who are willing to play Balthasar, as might be the case in some Spanish villages? Under these conditions, and this bring me to the other implication, it does not seem wrong for blackedup white locals to do so instead, provided that they do not adopt crude stereotypical features of black people such as overdrawn lips and unrealistically dark skin. As well as making it easier to differentiate the three kings (which again is a sine 44  qua non of a parade that revolves around these figures), such crossracial Balthasar impersonations are necessary under the current conditions for honouring an old and widely valued tradition (see the penultimate paragraph), which suggests that any offence that they may cause would not be gratuitous.

Objections and Some Rejoinders
My contention hitherto has been that black makeup traditions are morally justified if, but not necessarily only if (more on this in the next section), three conditions are satisfied: (i) the large majority of individuals who help to sustain these traditions do not believe that they denigrate black people; (ii) the relevant traditions do not portray black people in denigrating ways; and (iii) the relevant traditions are not gratuitously offensive. What I want to do in this section is to answer (what I regard as) the most promising objection to the claimed sufficiency of these conditions. This objection maintains that even black makeup traditions that satisfy (i)-(iii) are unjustifiable when, and because, for some local black people, they evoke painful associations with black makeup traditions that are, or were, denigrating to black people (think of the tradition of North American minstrel shows) and/or with other expressions of antiblack racism, whether current or past.
One immediate response here is that, if these associations are triggered because people erroneously believe that the triggering traditions denigrate black people as well, then the most sensible solution would be to alert them to the innocent nature of said traditions rather than to abolish the traditions. Suppose, however, that some black individuals know that a local black makeup tradition is morally innocent (e.g., the New Orleans Zulu parade), but are still painfully reminded by it of racist black makeup traditions. In that case, I still do not think that the tradition ought to be abolished. To see why not, note that, due to the diversity in people's worldviews, religions, cultures, personalities, and experiences, there are numerous public activities that cause some to have painful associations even if they do not necessarily believe that the activities in question are morally problematic. Someone who has been abused by a priest might associate a Catholic procession with child abuse; someone who has gotten injured in a Jihadist attack might associate the wearing of a headscarf with Islamic terrorism; someone whose shop was looted during a BLM riot might associate the wearing of BLM merchandise with looting; someone whose grandfather was a political prisoner in the Soviet Union might associate performances of The Internationale with the Gulags, etc. Were it the case that all of these and many other public activities are unjustified simply because they trigger painful associations among some individuals, then there would remain very few things that we are morally allowed to do in public, which I assume cannot be right.

A Further Case Where Black MakeUp Traditions Might Be Justified
That concludes my defence of the claim that black makeup traditions can be morally vindicated under certain conditions. I should reiterate at this point that the three conditions that were identified are not necessarily the only ones under which such traditions are justifiable. Consider Saint Nicholas celebrations on the DutchCaribbean island of Bonaire where the character of Black Pete has sparked very little, if any, criticism among its predominantly black population, and where Pete impersonators are in fact painted much darker than their EuropeanDutch counterparts. 49 In the previous section, I have argued that Black Pete portrays black people in a demeaning way given that he has various features that suggest that he is a black servant to a white bishop (Saint Nicholas), who in Bonaire tends to be impersonated by a whitenedup black person. 50 However, some might say that the fact that most black Bonaireans do not regard Black Pete as morally problematic, along with the fact that a significant proportion of them wants to preserve this character, 51 is normatively significant. On this view, the pro tanto reasons against Black Pete that stem from his racially denigrating features are outweighed when (I) enough local black people support his presence in Saint Nicholas celebrations and when (II) any opposition to his presence among this group is not too large.
Why think that this view is correct? Those who accept it would argue that respecting people's agency is morally important, and that doing so requires that they have a certain amount of space to present themselves in selfdeprecating ways should they wish to do so. (Of course, akin to many people in the European Netherlands, 52 most Bonaireans might not see Black Pete as belittling black people, which may mean that they do not perceive their support for this character as a form of selfdeprecation.) Since an assessment of this argument would take us too far afield, I will not try to evaluate this view here; instead, I will simply point out that, if it turns out to be sound, then the three conditions that I have identified in the penultimate section are not necessary for rendering black makeup traditions morally justified even though they remain jointly sufficient.

Concluding Remarks
In recent years, it has become common for various specific black makeup traditions, 53 as well as black makeup traditions in general, 54 to be denounced as racist. This development fits into a broader trend whereby an everexpanding set of views, behaviours, and activities are given this label by predominantly leftleaning individuals, 55 and not rarely without adequate justification. 56 My aim here has been to show that, for some contemporary black makeup traditions, accusations of racism are unwarranted. To be more precise, I found that, although there are examples of unjustifiable black makeup traditions such as the Black Pete tradition in the European Netherlands, 57 there are good grounds for thinking that the New Orleans Zulu tradition is morally justified, as is the use of black makeup in Spanish Epiphany parades when there are no (willing) black locals to perform the role of King Balthasar. My hope is that this article will contribute to more nuanced public debates about these traditions, ones in which people do not take for granted that they are morally indefensible, but where they assess each tradition on the basis of its own characteristics.