For context to the above comment: "things are fishy" is a translation of a Dutch phrase "het klopt niet", which was thrown around during the pandemic, farmer's protests, a short lived qanon phase and other conspiracy thinking waves. It's an empty statement and feels tacked onto the above comment without explaining what exactly is fishy.
The push against making the Sinterklaas character of Zwarte Piet less of a racist stereotype is another culture war, provoked by shady organizations. Remember that there's foreign powers in whose interest it is to get people really upset over issues like this; they don't care who "wins", as long as people get upset over it and feel threatened by a boogieman.
Dutch people demand to know what is fishy about making a black face, dressing up in colonial clothes and acting childish. They think this is “empty talk”. There is a long, long list of these kinds of “cultural” behaviors. Especially the rural area is particularly backwards.
I don’t know what to say. Meet some people outside your bubble. It certainly helped me.
Anyway, the Dutch and their deep-rooted racism are only superficially related to this issue.
My main point was to say that there exists the possibility that you may be wrong about holding on to outdated norms and changing things might be a good idea. Sinterklaas is just a particularly obvious one, but as you show, a lot of people still have some way to go.
The push against making the Sinterklaas character of Zwarte Piet less of a racist stereotype is another culture war, provoked by shady organizations. Remember that there's foreign powers in whose interest it is to get people really upset over issues like this; they don't care who "wins", as long as people get upset over it and feel threatened by a boogieman.