Usually I publish the lyrics of my a cappella songs on this blog, but today I’m going to do something different. Since I have a particular interest in history, I’d like to draw your attention to an important and historical event in the Netherlands (Europe). Recently, the Dutch King apologized for the Netherlands’ role in slavery in Suriname (South America) and some Caribbean islands. Since I’m an African Surinamese man myself, I’d like to respond to this and elaborate on the topic of racism. Where do we go from here as a black and colored community, but also as a multicultural society, now that anti-woke sentiments are rising in our country? Anti-woke conservatives always hate on diversity, feminism and LGBTQ in mainstream media and social media. This movement has become extremely popular. It’s very worrisome. I would also like to discuss the role of so called ‘Christians’ who have been relentless in perpetuating and maintaining the ‘white savior’ complex. What a lot of people don’t know is that African slaves (prisoners!) were not allowed to practice their own religions in Suriname. They were Christianized. All other religions became pagan and nudity became a sin too. So slaves lost much of their African cultures. I will also discuss my own relationship with Christianity, because Christ started appearing in my dreams when I was a child. By the way, English is not my native language, so forgive me if I make language mistakes.

WARNING: In this article I will talk about some sensitive topics in our society. You’re welcome on my blog, but if you are easily offended, then maybe you’d better leave. I’m going to speak my truth, unapologetically.

Every year we celebrate Keti Koti in Suriname and the Netherlands on the 1st of July. Keti Koti means that the chains are broken, because on this day in 1863 the Dutch government abolished slavery in Suriname. So this year (2023) marks the 160th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, but actually it’s only 150 years ago, because after the abolition in 1863 African slaves were forced to continue working on plantations until 1873. Last year on the 19th of December 2022 Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister, apologized for the Dutch government’s active role in slavery and crimes committed against Africans. Now 7 months later on July 1, on the occasion of 150 years of the abolition of slavery, the Dutch King Willem-Alexander also apologizes for the role his family played in slavery in their (former) colonies: Suriname in South America and some islands in the Caribbean such as Curacao, Aruba, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius. This is a historical moment and a very emotional moment for a lot of people, especially for the descendants of the African slaves, including myself. Finally, there’s an official recognition of this crime against humanity and all the suffering that slaves and their descendants endured for centuries.

This monument depicts the surnames of freed African slaves in Suriname. After slavery was abolished in 1863, they were given names by their former slave owners. My paternal grandfather’s surname ‘Kort’ can be found in the list of surnames. I don’t have any other information about him, because he died when my father was two years old and my father’s parents were not together anymore.

My maternal grandmother’s surname ‘Roemer’ is in the list of surnames. My grandma’s grandparents used to be slaves working on a plantation in Para. Para is a district in Suriname. My grandma’s paternal grandmother’s name was ‘Roemer’ and her paternal grandfather’s name was ‘Bova’. Her grandpa was a ransomed slave before the abolition of slavery. Bova and Roemer were not allowed to get married during slavery.

My parents come from Suriname. Both my mother and father are African Surinamese, although both of them are also mixed (interracial), but most black people in Suriname are mixed. The point is that we identify as black people. My father passed away in 2018, but my mother is alive and doing well. I know this historical moment means a lot to people of my parents’ generation. My mother still has clear memories of the 100th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Suriname on 1 July 1963. She was almost 10 years old at that time. My maternal grandmother died in 2019, she was 95 years old (born 1924), and when she was a little girl in Suriname, a lot of older black people who used to be slaves in the 19th century were still alive. My grandma’s father (Roemer) was black and her mother was mixed. Of course it was the same situation for my maternal grandfather (Refos, born 1914) when he was a little boy, even though his ethnical background was different, because his mother (Refos) was a mixed woman from Suriname and his father came from China. Even when my mother (born 1953) and father (born 1943) were small children in Suriname, a few freed slaves were still alive, but of course they were very old. So for people of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, slavery is not that long ago.

My mother migrated to the Netherlands in the 1970s, because she was a student. Actually, a lot of Surinamese people moved to the Netherlands in the 1970s. My father never migrated, but he often came on vacation in the Netherlands. My parents’ relationship already started in Suriname in the 1960s, but I was born in 1978 and raised by my mother in the Netherlands, so I also went to school in this country. Honestly, during history lessons Dutch teachers (who were white) rarely talked about the Dutch government’s role in slavery. Most history lessons were about the first and second world wars. I understand that there was a lot of suffering for many European people during these wars, but when I was a teenager at high schooI I always thought it was strange that the history of my parental country (Suriname) was almost non-existent in Dutch history books. Teachers also never mentioned the role that Suriname played in WWII. My maternal grandmother worked as a soldier when 2000 American soldiers came to Suriname in 1941 to help the Dutch protect the borders of Suriname, especially the bauxite industry, against the German Nazis. My grandmother worked as a truck driver for the American soldiers. The absence of Suriname in Dutch history books made a lot of black people feel invisible in the Netherlands. I can relate to that, because as a black gay man I have often felt invisible in Holland. I often feel that my life, my happiness doesn’t really count in this country. I’m just a ‘nigger’, just a ‘fag’.

In 2013 I made a video about the racist character Zwarte Piet, also called Black Pete or Blackface, who is the servant of Sinterklaas (similar to Santa Claus). I criticized this racist Dutch tradition through satire and published my video on social media. I received a lot of hateful comments from Dutch people wishing me dead. For many years some Dutch people with a lot of power have tried to suppress my video on YouTube, because they don’t want it to get views, but somehow the video still managed to get a lot of views. Since October 2017 I have been shadowbanned on YouTube. They manipulated the algorithm in such a way that my video was not able to get any views anymore. It went from thousands of views per day to zero views. So this is the state of the Dutch society today. This is what might happen. If a black person stands up and wants to give his or her opinion about an important topic, there’s still a big chance that white supremacists will try to silence us. And it seems that the number of white supremacists is increasing, probably stimulated by the popularity of some right-wing extremist political parties. But this is not only happening in the Netherlands. Something is changing in many Western countries. In the past certain groups of people were called ‘neo fascists’ or ‘right-wing extremists’, but today many people refer to themselves as ‘anti-woke conservatives’. It sounds interesting, but what does it really mean? I’ve watched a lot of interviews with anti-woke politicians, reporters and influencers and I’ve come to a negative conclusion. Anti-woke conservatives are (closeted) racists, misogynists and homophobes. They want people like me to fail in society and in fact they would like to return to the 18th century when discrimination ruled the world. Anti-woke conservatives are often narcissists and emotionally disabled and unable to feel empathy for minorities. For some reason they believe that the white ‘race’ is in danger, but it’s really not (if you ask me) or maybe they just want to pretend that the white race is in danger and put fear in the hearts of white children. Fear mongering! They often create the most bizar conspiracy theories and want to make people, especially young people, believe that the ‘wokists’ (a new discriminatory label for people like me) want to oppress straight white men and women. Today you can read the word ‘woke’ all over social media. It’s a new hype! A similar thing happened in Germany in the 1930s when the Nazis started blaming innocent and hard-working Jews for everything that went wrong in society. They became the scapegoats.

But I do understand the frustrations of angry white people in the Netherlands and the rest of Western Europe. They are not happy with the large numbers of migrants coming from Africa and Asia. White people have the feeling that they are losing their countries. Dutch white people are afraid that we will steal their best jobs and they’re also angry that a large proportion of crime, especially in the big cities, is caused by black men (from Suriname / Caribbean) and Arab men (e.g. Moroccans). It’s not my intention to justify criminal behaviour of those young black and colored men, because crime is always wrong, but a lot of them can’t find jobs and feel lost in the Netherlands. Many ‘foreigners’ face discrimination in the labor market. Not only people of color but also white people from Eastern Europe (e.g. Polish people) can’t find jobs. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Dutch respond to migrants in this way, because it’s human nature to feel fear of the unknown, the other, especially the ‘dark’ other, but the truth is population movements have taken place all over the world for thousands if not millions of years. Animals do the same thing, e.g. elephants, birds and fish travel thousands of miles by land and sea, always looking for food, a better place to stay. Nobody leaves their home without a reason. Many people are war refugees, so they were forced to leave their countries, but some other people are just looking for adventures and want more land. That’s what Western Europeans did in the Americas and Australia. They stole all the land from Native Americans and Aboriginals. The Islamic Arabs (from Asia) did the same thing when they colonized Egypt, Morocco and the rest of North-Africa. We live in a world that continues to change due to population movements. Probably, you won’t like that, but there’s not a lot you can do about it, so you just have to accept that people will always keep moving around the world. It’s the nature of the beast. Nothing will stay the same forever. Our society will never be the way it was 100 years ago, because everything changes. People are afraid of change and many of them are unable to adapt to new times and new situations.

So who are the wokists according to the anti-woke conservatives? Well, they want you to believe that the so called ‘globalists’ want to create a new world order and want to educate people about diversity, gender and sexuality. In other words, empowerment for minorities such as black people and other people of color in the Western world and also more visibility for members from the LGBTQ community and more opportunities and equal pay for women. People who used to be discriminated a lot in the past and are still facing a lot of discrimination today. It makes you wonder: Is it really such a bad thing to empower these marginalized groups of people and make them more visible? Do you really have to ban books educating children about the existence of LGBTQ people on this planet? Most children know a gay or bisexual aunt, uncle or cousin in their families and yet these anti-woke conservatives don’t want any gay characters in children books and movies, because they want to ‘protect’ children. Oh, really??? For example, when I was a small child, I knew that my favorite aunt was a proud lesbian or bisexual black woman, because she openly lived with her black girlfriend in the 1980s and 1990s. But there are so many other LGBTQ people and black/colored people who just want some respect, freedom and visibility. We exist! Don’t you want them to achieve a little more autonomy and financial independence? Are we allowed to be happy and fully enjoy our humanity? We just want to be seen as human beings and we want more equal opportunities. It’s not our goal to discriminate or oppress white people and straight people. Because the anti-woke conservatives pretend that white people and heterosexual people are now the new victims. God gave this world, this planet, to all of us. We all have the right to enjoy the fruits of life. Listen, you anti-woke conservatives! Nobody wants to hurt you! Stop being such a cry baby! And stop fear mongering! You straight white men and women still get the best and highest paid jobs in this stupid hierarchical world.

Even more bizar is the fact there are many black people and other people of color who are interested in the ideas of the anti-woke conservatives. I guess it won’t surprise you, but there’s a lot of racism within the black and colored communities. There are plenty of black and colored people who don’t like interacting with each other, simply because they have an aversion to other black and colored people. In other words, they don’t like their own etnicity. They are not proud of their African roots and natural looks and try everything they can to change that, so called ‘acting white’. That’s one of the reasons why the emancipation of black and colored people is going so very slow, because a lot of them don’t support each other. The darker your skin is the more rejection you will experience in the black and colored communities. Dark-skinned black women in particular have to deal with racism the most in their own communities. Black men reject dark women all the time. They always look for light-skinned women as partners for marriage. It’s a very painful topic for many women and we don’t really talk about it in our communities, but it’s there and we all can see it, because it’s so obvious. In recent years I’ve seen the word ‘colorism’ a lot, but I don’t like this word, because I think it’s an understatement and it downplays or hides the existence of racism in black and colored communities. These black men are not colorists. They are racists! Just call it what it is. Many of them don’t help dark-skinned black women raise their children and they don’t help them move to more expensive neighbourhoods. They only help light-skinned women and they prefer light-skinned children too. Even my own father, every time he came to the Netherlands for a holiday, he spent more time with his light-skinned cousins than with me. By the way, they had good hair (straight and wavy). I remember…. when I was a toddler I started crying when my father played games with my much older cousins in the living room of his sister’s home, because he didn’t look at me and didn’t seem to be interested in playing games with a toddler. Eventually, my mother broke off their engagement in 1983. Now that I’m older I do understand that my father was probably conditioned to prefer light-skinned people, because all his half brothers and half sisters were white. He was the only biracial child of his Portuguese Surinamese mother (De Freitas, born 1906), the only child with a black father. After some time my mother married a Dutch white man (Elting, born 1950) in June 1985. During my childhood I didn’t have a good relationship with him, partly because it was difficult for me to accept a white man as my stepfather, but he has always been there for me when my black father wasn’t. My stepfather was there for me at important moments such as learning how to ride a bicycle, learning to swim, helping me overcome my fear of deep water, learning how to skate on ice and him talking to the school principal when I was bullied at high school. He is still a part of my life today.

Another reason that a lot of black and colored people have joined the anti-woke movement is because there’s a lot of homophobia in families of African, Asian and Middle Eastern descent. The Bible, the Quran and the Torah in particular have fueled a fear of LGBTQ in many people. So I have to confess that as a black gay man I almost never received emotional support from other black and colored people. Also black and colored gay men have not been supportive to me. There’s no unity or harmony in the black and colored communities in Holland according to my opinion. Probably because there are so many different ethnicities and cultures within these communities. But the African Surinamese and African Antillean communities in particular have been torn apart. They don’t really work together like the Moroccans and Turks do, because these two population groups often create their own companies in the Netherlands. But black people (including myself) often continue to work for a boss, because we are afraid to start new business. I don’t have a bad job and I can get by just fine, but I work for the Dutch government and I feel like I’m just a little pawn in a huge bureaucratic machine and I see that many other black people are in the same position. Why can’t we come together and create a new business? Black people are often so insecure, confused and messed up mentally and emotionally, which hinders our creativity and productivity, partly because of the slavery and colonial past, but also because of our discriminatory religions suppressing the power of our souls and our obsessive search for white beauty and a ‘white savior’. But is Christ really white? Or is that a lie?

Despite some discriminatory texts against gay men in the Bible, I still believe in Christ, because he started appearing in my dreams, as far as I can remember, when I was a 6 year old child in 1984. In the first dream I can remember, Christ showed the stigmata in his hands to me. At that young age I did not know the resurrection story, because my Catholic parents never read the Bible to me and we never visited churches, so all I knew as a 6 year old boy was that Christ died on the cross, because I had seen that image on my rosary. So even though I did not know the resurrection story, the resurrected Christ still appeared in my dream. That’s very special to me. I think he wanted to come close to me, because he wanted to prove that he’s real and probably because he was concerned about my well-being. I know it was really him, because there’s simply no one like him. His presence is so divine. I’ve never seen such a humble man who is so majestic at the same time. I have seen Christ in many more dreams, but honestly, in a lot of dreams I didn’t recognize him, because he looked so different. Based on those dreams, I think this must be his true appearance. So I’m pretty sure what the real historical ‘Yeshua’ or ‘Yehoshua’ (his original Jewish name) looked like and I can tell that he looks different from the bearded white man with long dark or blond hair that you see in biblical illustrations, paintings, documentaries and movies. Surprisingly, in most of my dreams he had short dark (curly) hair, a (light) brown skin color and often no beard or only a stubble beard. It wasn’t until I grew up that I finally realized that the colored man with short dark curly hair was also Christ! I guess that’s what the real historical Yeshua used to look like. Actually, that’s what some dreams revealed to me in the early 2000s. It made me realize that racism was also present in me. Because of my brainwashing, I couldn’t recognize the short-haired and brown-skinned Yeshua as Christ in my own dreams for so many years!!! Nevertheless he was always very kind, respectful and supportive to me. That’s how I know that he loves LGBTQ people. When churches tell you that Christ disapproves of gay people, you should know that’s a lie made up by hateful priests! For centuries demonic entities have tried to change and suppress the true identity and the true loving message of Christ. The truth is he loves outcasts and will always support them.

Christ was of Middle Eastern descent. Let me remind you that a lot of people from that region have a (light) brown skin color and dark (curly) hair. I know that Yeshua was not part of Egyptian culture, although according to the Gospel of Matthew he may have lived in Egypt for a while, but based on my dreams I think he did bear a strong resemblance to Egyptians. I’ve been to Egypt (Luxor) in 2019 and I think Yeshua could definitely blend in with the local mixed population there (Egyptian, Nubian and Arab). I also believe that the ancient Israelites in Canaan were descended from the Egyptians. They had brown skin and black curly hair, like most North Africans at that time. I assume they are the ancestors of Yeshua. I strongly believe if Yeshua walked on the Earth today, a lot of people would not pay attention to him, simply because he doesn’t look like a white man from Europe. Millions of so called ‘Christians’ would reject him simply because of his skin color and curly hair texture. Black and colored people would also reject him, because many of them don’t like that hair type. All of them are racists, but that’s just my personal opinion.

The King of the Netherlands apologized for Holland’s slavery past. What will this mean for the future of black and colored people in the Netherlands? Of course an apology is just a ceremonial formality. I do appreciate it, because it has a lot of meaning, but it will not change our lives. So what’s next? First of all, it’s important to know that excessive force against black and colored people still happens today, especially police violence which is often the result of racial profiling, and many of them are really innocent. That’s why the Black Lives Matter movement is so important today, because it tries to raise awareness in the hope that something will change. Even though this movement comes from the United States of America, it also matters for black/colored people living in Western European countries. Don’t listen to anti-woke conservatives trying to demonize the Black Lives Matter movement and claiming this movement was created by the so called ‘globalists’. That’s not true! Secondly, I think the best thing black and colored people can do is look within themselves. Deal with the racism in your own heart, because during slavery times a lot of slaves copied the racist ways of thinking from their white masters. In 1873 there came an end to physical slavery for black people in Suriname, but there’s still a lot of mental slavery among black people today. Will black and colored people be able to set themselves free from mental slavery??? Because in their minds they still think and act like slaves, but that’s just my personal opinion again. They often suffer from a low self-esteem. So I’d like to say to them: Look at yourself in the mirror! You are beautiful and smart. As long as your minds are not really free, you are still slaves, sadly. And my message to all black, white, colored and mixed people: Set your mind free! Learn to think with your heart. Everything you see in this world is only temporary. Physical beauty is only temporary. Materialistic success is only temporary. Fame and fortune are temporary and followers/subscribers are temporary too. We don’t need 10.000 friends or subscribers. Nothing lasts on this mortal planet. Thank God! We should be grateful that death exists, because this is a very nasty world to live in. So my message to people is: Love your soul and take care of it! It’s like giving water to a flower. Prepare for the afterlife (if you believe there’s something more)! Free yourself from all the lies that your families, friends and local churches or mosques told you and all the burdens that they placed on your back and shoulders. I know your cross is heavy.

The moral of my story is that nobody wishes to be a beast of burden. Over the centuries this has happened to so many people who were captured, dehumanized and forced to live and work as slaves. This already started thousands of years ago. Even in the postmodern era, there’s still a lot of modern slavery such as trafficking in women and children. But trauma also happens to intelligent animals today, such as gorillas, elephants, horses, donkeys and giraffes. They have feelings too! There’s so much animal abuse. Animals that are forced to live in cages in a zoo or forced to perform in top sports and circuses or used for heavy physical work. A lot of those magnificent animals don’t even know what freedom feels like, because they were born in captivity. Luckily, I know what freedom feels like and I know it’s a human right, but it’s also a privilege, because not everybody is allowed to be free. That’s why we should never take freedom for granted. It’s something we must protect at all costs! Stay vigilant, because there are many anti-woke conservatives who are old-fashioned racists and some of them anonymously post very racist comments on social media, expressing their believe that the white race is far superior and that slavery should never have been abolished. So even today there are some white folks who think that way. That’s scary. How is this possible? I guess there are a lot of angry white people on social media today, because they are losing their white privilege in a world that’s changing. So is there a chance that history (slavery) will be repeated? Well, only time will tell. And how could we prevent that history will be repeated? Read the warnings on the wall and raise awareness in people, especially young people, because they are the future. Let them read books that tell the truth. But most of all, teach children to show compassion for people who are weaker. My African ancestors were not free for a long time, because they were not seen as fully human. So what does it take to be seen as human? And why are only humans allowed to be free and animals not? Why are their feelings less important to some people? Why are creatures with a lower IQ not allowed to be free? They still have feelings and need love. Just because you’re more intelligent doesn’t mean you have the right to enslave less intelligent beings. People with the highest IQ could use their intelligence for so many good causes and yet they often choose to use it for bad things, being selfish, greedy and power hungry. Well, that’s just monstrous, barbaric and cowardly. Those sadists must have a very low EQ. What could you do when you meet that type of person? Stand up to him or her! Do not ever accept toxic behaviour! Protect the weak, the homeless, the disabled, the ones who are not able to speak up for themselves. Back in 2004 I visited a zoo in Berlin (Germany) and saw some gorillas in a cage behind glass. A gorilla and I looked at each other. Somehow I got the feeling that I was looking at a human being, her eyes, her body language, the way the mother gorilla held her baby in her arms, and I just felt so sad and embarrassed. I’m able to express my feelings with words, but she can’t. So I wonder: How did she feel?

Ryan Maurice Roemer, 9 July 2023
Art History graduate, Leiden University

In loving memory of my maternal grandmother (Heligonda Roemer) who died on the 9th of July 2019. She was 95 years old and a devoted Christian woman. I think the King’s apology would have meant a lot to her.

© 2023 Ryan Maurice Roemer.
All rights reserved.
Duplication, replication or any other form of distribution of this article without my permission is prohibited.

For more information about the Dutch King’s apology, just click on the links below:
King apologizes for Netherlands’ role in slavery (Reuters)
Dutch King apologizes for the Netherlands’ role in slavery (DW News)
Dutch King Willem-Alexander apologises for country’s role in slavery (BBC News)