My one Belgian friend defended Zwarte Piet.

The other day when I was on campus I ran into my one Belgian friend who's a classicist, but not one of those classicists, and I asked him if the Zwarte Piet tradition existed among the Flemish.

As it turns out, it did.

"Yes," he was like, "And some people think it's racist, but I don't know. We have so few black people in Belgium, and it's hard for me to evaluate something that is such a fond memory from my childhood. And in any case our liberal education system makes up for it."

That night, I hung out with some people at the student bar, including a person in my program from Texas and his wife, who is also in my program and is also from Texas via India and Kuwait (her parents are originally from India but ran businesses elsewhere and ended up in the U.S.).

"That tradition isn't that odd," the guy was like, "We have people who dress up like that all the time in Texas. Only they pretend to be Indian."

"Yes," his wife was like, "And they talk like this," and she did a stereotypical heavy Indian accent.

"And they throw samosas at the heads of children who behave badly!", I was like, and at that his wife mock-scornfully was like, "No, what are you talking about, they throw chapatis."

Later, too, me and her were talking, and she was like, "I can't believe [the one Belgian guy, who she also knows] said that. But, that's the thing about racism, no-one thinks they're racist."

Then, she said that she never tries to accuse people of being a racist, but rather asks them very very hard questions which kind of make them reflect on their prejudiced sentiments, though she comes across misogynist statements more often than racist ones.

"Really?", I was like, "I thought you usually just reached down and gave the guy's balls a hard twist."

"That too, sometimes," she was like.