And I still don't really know what else to say about it. If black Dutchmen are fiercely opposed to Santaclaus' helper, it would be another thing.
Why would that matter? Would it otherwise not be a racist thing?
Personally, by the way, I do find it racist.
The good 'master' is white and the bad 'slave' is black. It's hard to deny it being racist.
Like said earlier, it's an image created in times of slavery
If anybody can correct me, feel free!
I guess you're about right, although must be said that most Dutch people (even though they won't admit it) can relatively easily understand German, even if they never had much (or any) German in school. As the language is very much akin to Dutch.
And indeed, English often comes with television (in contrast to most other countries movies and series aren't adlibbed, but subtitled) and the internet.
Most children get their first English lessons in school when they're about twelve years old, although they've often learned the language a lot earlier.
Fun fact, by the way: English is one of the Netherlands official secondary languages (along with Frisian and Papiamento).
As for French:
It used to be a language children were taught even in primary school years ago, but nowadays it's not obligatory.
There are two obligatory language courses one needs to do in secondary school, these are Dutch and English and then there's a whole range of facultative languages, depending on the school, such as French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Arabic, Turkish, Frisian and Papiamento. Chinese isn't yet one of the language one can do a recognized course in secondary school in.
Personally I had Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish in secondary school.
Another fun fact:
Even though the French got their name from the Franks, the Dutch language evolved from the Frankish language.
