Oprah Winfrey: "Do they have black people in Holland?"

Oprah Winfrey didn’t know that there are black people in the Netherlands.

In April this year two Dutch black women (Astrid and Ivy) were the lucky fans in the studio audience for the Oprah Winfrey Show. Because one of them had turned 40-years old they had send postcards and letters asking if they could meet Oprah and visit the studio,

Their dream came true and they actually met Oprah in person. When Oprah asked, “where are you from”, the two ladies replied, “from Holland!” Then Oprah replied, "Do they have black people in Holland?"

In august the two (Surinamese) ladies appeared in a popular Dutch TV show to tell their story. See video.


And yes, there are almost 400.000 black people in Holland with roots in the Caribbean and Africa.

For those who love stats, some numbers of the “black” (Sub-Saharan) community in the Netherlands.

Surinamese - 162.000 (An unofficial estimate is that 48% of the total Surinamese community in the Netherlands is Creole/Black/Mixed)
Antilleans almost - 130.000 (most of them from Curacao)
Cape Verdeans more then - 20.000
Somali - 25.000
Ghanaians - 16.000
Ethiopians - 10.948
Angolans - 12.281
Congolese - 8.490
Sudanese - 7.626
Nigerians - 7.298

Surinamese people are from the former Dutch colony of Surinam and Antilleans are from the Dutch islands of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

And by the way, Oprah is not the only one.