Reddit reviews The Boy and the Tigers (Little Golden Book)

> She gave him a black face because of his name, not the other way around.

It doesn't matter. The "Zwarte" in Zwarte Piet is clearly associated with his race. That's what people have associated it with for over 100 years.

It's ridiculous to claim that lack of ill intent is justification of keeping an outdated, offensive tradition. It doesn't matter if people had no ill intentions, they were unintentionally harboring and spreading ideas that had built-in racist assumptions and stereotypes which we should absolutely not be repeating to children in 2016.

This isn't unique to the Dutch, but the Dutch are the only ones refusing to modernize their folklore, which is why this story is always in the news and on Reddit. It's so weird how some people crazily insist on not letting this go. Have you heard of Little Black Sambo? There was no ill-intent in that book either, but it has since been revised significantly because it was full of racist tropes. The modern version is called The Boy and the Tigers. Identical story, racist tropes removed. See how easy that was? Culture preserved! And the bonus is that we can keep the original books and stories to help teach older kids about history.

Similarly, if you watch The Goonies as an adult, you will cringe at the uncomfortable, inappropriate depiction of Asian people, which has been revised in similar stories (Stranger Things, for example). It's a continual process of refinement that every other modern country seems to understand and work on.