Sooty Piets take over, blackface out of favour in most towns and cities

The traditional blackface Zwarte Piet is disappearing fast from the Sinterklaas celebrations and sooty Piets now have the upper hand, according to research by the AD. The paper asked Sinterklaas committees in more than 210 different local authority areas about their plans and found the blackface version had been replaced by sooty Piets in 123 towns and villages and by a combination of both in 32. Just 10 local authorities told the AD they were sticking to the original version...