Dutch writer controversial book and film "Only decent people" receives death threats

Cast of "Only decent people" with Dutch author Robert Vuijsje right on the photo
The controversy surrounding the film adaptation of the controversial bestseller by Dutch writer Robert Vuijsje, entitled "Alleen Maar Nette Mensen" (“Only Decent People”) has lead to death threats to the writer.

Vuijsje received death treats from listeners of a Black [Surinamese] radio station last Sunday. According to the listeners the book and the film are giving a wrong and damaging image of the Black Amsterdam suburb the Bijlmer [Amsterdam Southeast] and its inhabitants. Vuijsje would be interviewed tonight at the local black radio station Radio Mart in Amsterdam, but the interview in Amsterdam has been cancelled.

Last night the local radio Station in Amsterdam Southeast already received many angry phone calls after the interview was announced. After the broadcast the situation escalated completely. “Some of the responses were very aggressive. I am used to hot tempered people, but this was serious,"  says Black radio host Guilly Koster on the Amsterdam TV station AT5

But the host still wants to go ahead with the interview, but in a different studio at another location. “It’s a worthless film if you’re Black,” says host Koster, “ but it doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to make such a film.”

Author Robert Vuijsje responded that, ”this is not the way it should go in the Netherlands”.

The film is about a well-bred middleclass Jewish man, who discovers he has a craving for Black urban girls from the suburbs. The film is now playing in theaters.

Actress Immanuelle Grives

Immanuelle Grives, the actress who plays the stereotypical Black woman,  says in an interview on 4 October in ‘De Volkkrant’: “ I can imagine that Black women in the Bijlmer first think: why do we see those cheap Black woman, gangbangs and more of these images? But I would find it foolish if people who watched the film would think: oh, so all Surinamese Black women are like that.  If you look at Oh  Cherso [a Dutch tv series about anti-social people], I presume you would also understand that not all Dutch people are like that.”

Grives: “I was so stupid enough to read some of the comments beforehand, but I notice that these comments really hurt me.  I mean: I am Black woman myself. I too want more Black women on TV and in films. But I do think: Robert Vuijsje wrote this story: and if you, as a Black person, also want to write something about your culture, or want to make film of it, you just have do it, yourself. “

I don't think these death threats should be taken seriously, but I do think there would be some form of  aggression  if he had showed up at the radio show in Amsterdam.

8 Comments

  1. No joke here
    Like some of my rastafarian friends would say : Judgement!!!!

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  2. The Dutch are planing a Holocaust to foreigners right under our noses and showing Blacks as murderous animals is just the thing they need to make it possible and welcome to whites. Whites still see Blacks as apes, and ugly and fat too. My research is on the web and called Will there be another holocaust. My blog is bluebloodisblackblood.blogspot.com and I have a museum: Suriname Blue Blod Is Black Blood museum at The Hague.
    There is a Schrijfwedstrijd/ writing competition in Dutch underway.

    Egmond Codfried
    The Netherlands

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    Replies
    1. Hello Egmond, your blog seems very interesting. Do you have an english version of your research? I understand a few dutch, not as well as english.

      I would also be interested in visiting your museum.

      Thank you

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    2. Yes, the blog is both Dutch and English, and in google, looking under my name will yield a lot in English. Read my two 'Was Jane Austen (1775-1817) Black?' and its update articles in google.
      This movie reminds me of the Sarah Baartman case, like we are still living in 1815 and Blacks are stigmatized as ugly, degenerated white humans, just a step above apes. But instead of getting angry we should find out what they really have against Blacks. I discovered whites were oppressed, civilized and christianized by browns and blacks (1100-1848), and only freed themselves in 1789-1794 with the French Revolution, and finally in 1848 when white serfs were emancipated. Then they painted the history of Europe white. Racism against Blacks is a liberation ideology, as they do not want to be ruled by Blacks again. Yet all of this was 200 years ago, but they still have Pieterbaas (since 1848) to teach white children about whiteness as a hatred of Blacks. Human races were invented to give whites human status as they were kept as shoe leather cattle. The Declaration of Human Rights is whites asking for equal treatment by their black noble masters. The endless study of slavery is to push the blacks-as-slaves-only agenda to mentally enslave Blacks and traumatize and intimidate Blacks. Blacks ruled Europe and the fate of Blacks in the European diaspora is what informs the situation of Blacks today. Not slavery, as Black Civilisation already lasts 10.000 years. Blacks should reject the history as whites force it upon us, and reject the fake whitened portraits they show us.

      Egmond Codfried
      Suriname Blue Blood is Black Blood Museum

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    3. "Whites still see Blacks as apes..."

      Believe or not that attitude has decreased heavily and steadily during the last 7 decades. Even films like this one can't change the big picture. Racism in large scale is minority attitude in western Europe. Slavery wasn't even the worst period - i would say that years 1870-1945 were the worst of all.

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  3. Immanuelle Grives just doesn't get it, or maybe she does but doesn't want to say it, alot of white people who will watch this don't have black friends and have never been to the Bijlmer (and if they do it's white men looking for black women they would never be seen in the day with), and will think all black people act like this, this won;t improve race relations it will make it worse, you can have programmes about different kind of white people because they dominate the country, black people don;t dominate in Europe and people have sterotypical images of us, especially women as Jezebels (a black woman with no values who lures the white man away from being good) which this film promotes, how would the author feel if I done a film exposing Jewish women in this manner. I'm glad the fool got death threats maybe it's the only way people will learn.

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    Replies
    1. Grives absolutely doesn't get it. And neither does that fool director.

      Like you said, it's one thing if there were widespread positive (or more balanced) images of black people all over Dutch TV and Film, then there would be depictions and examples to counter, contrast and give perspective to more negative images of black people. BUT THAT IS NOT THE CASE (from what I understand)! When there is already a general perception amongst the white populace that black people do in fact behave and act like those portrayed in that film, than that stereotype is REINFORCED and SOLIDIFIED as truth.

      Because of the consistent denigration and misrepresentation of black people, it's unrealistic and naive to think that the average white or non-black Dutchman would say, "Hmmm...this is only a depiction of SOME black people who live in Bijlmer." WRONG. That is hardly how it works.

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  4. He should be glad that the threats were only threats. I mean seriously do they not know how powerful films like that are. WTF!! Ms. Grives like really how retarded is she? That is so rhetorical. I mean you have Black people who are trying to promote positive images and intelligence and then you have this director with a film equivalent of trash totally pissing all that away. How can we combat negative stereotypes when films like this are being produced? The following sequences will unravel like this (in no particular order, obviously), an article will be printed, a comment made, and an image shown that will cause Black people to cry out discrimination and racism. We’re going to scratch our heads and wonder why people perceive us in such a negative, inferior, and disrespectful light. Behold, my Dutch citizens the film “Only Decent People” is your answer. You know the director and Ms.Grives should just do us all a favor and kick their own buckets and not make films like ever again.

    *I would love to say this film would never be produced in America, but f$%k he probably received funding from American studios. Films like this are definitely a problem, and should be addressed like now.

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