A tradition in Spain of people wearing black make-up on their faces to emulate one of the three wise men to celebrate the feast of the epiphany has prompted outrage and calls for an end to the practice.
Parades, known as cabalgatas, that commemorate the arrival of the wise men at Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus take place across Spain on the eve of the Three Magi, or Reyes Magos, feast day on January 6. The events, which mark the end of Christmas and the day when people exchange gifts for the festive season, still often feature people wearing blackface to represent Balthazar, the magus traditionally depicted as black in Christian lore.
In several towns, such as Igualada in Catalonia and Alcoy in Valencia, hundreds of Balthazar’s assistants or “pages”, also wear blackface.
Opposition has grown in recent years but the practice persists, sparking renewed calls for a ban. “It doesn’t matter what you think you’re trying to represent. It doesn’t matter that you think it makes kids happy. It doesn’t matter if it’s a tradition. If you paint yourself a colour that’s not yours, it’s racist,” Elvira Swartch Lorenzo said. She is a member of Afrofeminas, an anti-racism group that has campaigned against the tradition.
“The cabalgata contributes to normalising in the collective imagination the slave period as something harmless and without consequences,” she said. “The black faces that walk through the Spanish streets, our very presence, is a consequence of the slave and colonial past that is not studied in schools.”
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The organisers of the cabalgata in Igualada, one of the best known in Catalonia, said the parade will go ahead with up to 900 people wearing blackface. They said it would be too difficult to find enough black volunteers to replace all those who wear blackface.
“It’s not a question of racism,” Eduard Creus, the spokesman for the private foundation that organises the parade, told La Vanguardia newspaper. He said several measures were being studied to respond to the criticism, including appointing a black person to play Baltazhar.
“Groups of people of African descent have approached the foundation offering to look for and hire pages, but ours are not theatrical performances,” he added. “Volunteering transmits the magic feeling of the occasion.”
In 2019, a Catalan television station refused to continue to broadcast Igualada’s parade, opting for another one that did not use blackface volunteers. The same year anti-racism groups reported that their campaign had led to a reduction to one in four parades using blackface Baltazhars. Last year a senior official from Spain’s equality ministry criticised Alicante city hall for featuring a blackface Baltazhar.
Afrofeminas has called for a boycott of Alcoy’s parade, which is the oldest in Spain dating to 1885, but its appeal appears to have fallen on deaf ears. However, a petition by an animal rights group demanding that camels not be used in the event attracted more than 77,000 signatures.