You are right, I am ethnically caucasian and indeed, male. You just made me realize that I know next to nothing about other ethnicities and the world they live in (as in worldview and stuff they have to deal with). I know I am privileged, I mean, I live in a rich country, go to uni and everything, but I never realized that race was such an issue (at least, not here in the Netherlands). I thank you for this eye opener and I will try to understand more about where people are coming from when they are talking about racism. Maybe black petes with a soot stain across the face isn't that bad idea after all. By the way, I was thinking yesterday and it struck me that Zwarte Piet in the dutch language doesn't always have to mean the helper of Sinterklaas. I think that this explains it rather well...