You all know how much I love living in Spain. I love the country, the people (well, mostly), the culture, the food and wine, the pretty much everything… except the bit about it being so casually racist. To the point where almost nobody will admit to it. And every  year this becomes glaringly apparent during the festival of Los Reyes Magos – The Three Kings – on January 6th. This is traditionally when kids receive their presents over the holidays, just as the baby Jesus received gifts from the three wise men. On January 5th there are massive parades everywhere with floats and lights and music, culminating with the final float of the Kings. WITH BALTHAZAR INEVITABLY WEARING BLACK FACE.

Above you can see the usual depictions… Gaspar from India, Balthazar from Arabia and Melchior from Persia. Their gifts had special symbolic meanings: gold signified Jesus’ status as “King of the Jews;” frankincense represented the infant’s divinity and identity as the Son of God; and myrrh touched upon Jesus’ mortality. So far so good. EXCEPT that during the cabalgatas (parades) and other festivities Balthazar is always a white guy in black face. And somehow most Spanish people see absolutely no problem with this. Just like the people running the new 5 star hotel in Triana see nothing wrong with keeping racist tiles on their building. Why? Because IT’S TRADITION.

This caused a bit of a stir over the weekend on Twitter with both Spanish natives and non-Spanish residents (including me) posting comments and/or photos of black face Balthazars all over Spain. Mostly us non-Spanish were met with “go back to your own country” (those were the polite replies) as if somehow after 32 years I don’t understand Spanish culture. I’ve probably lived here longer than some of these commenters have been alive. Meanwhile, the thing about traditions is that they can evolve like anything else, otherwise we’d still be burning non-Christians on the stake here. I mean if Spain can embrace Santa Claus, Halloween and fucking Black Friday then I think there’s some wiggle room for removing racist “traditions” such as this. Of course, the obvious solution would be to just get a black guy to be Balthazar in the processions… except… there aren’t any. Or at least not many who are allowed to assimilate here in any meaningful way. And that is also racism, but you know what they say… the first step to solving a problem is admitting it exists. ✌️