I just finished my 2nd year as tech director for a ballet schools Nutcracker, and have done some light research on its history. Without the parts that may be considered racist, you lose almost the entire 2nd act. The 2nd act, BTW, is meant to represent an international selection of sweets. Tea from china, coffee from the Arabian world, as well as other goodies from Denmark (where the dance seems to involve possible acts of sexual harassment, by our stage managers assessment), Russia, and some other places I can't remember.
With these cultural appropriations, I think we should ask ourselves what the Nuts originators knew about these lands, and what element of these lands cultures they were aware of. Plus the context that this was all supposed to be Christmas cutesey to represent main character Clara's crazy dream about a doll coming to life and her eccentric uncle/godfather guiding them on this weird journey.
Lighten up people, were not being taught to hate anyone here, and if your interpretation of other cultures gets shaped by this you are an idiot who should not breed. It's ballet for ducks sake.

With respect, Tingleyfeelin, it's the seemingly innocuous expressions of racism that can do the most damage. If a child sees a Chinese person represented by a dancer who runs around the stage with their fingers pointed in the air and tipping their heads to and fro (not a feature of the PNB Chinese variation, but popular in many current productions), how is the child to know that this is a demeaning social stereotype rather than an accurate portrayal of Chinese culture? This just normalizes racist stereotypes. It's not just "ballet for ducks sake," it's irresponsible and lazy art.

well, the production replacing this one is just as racist, so you'll have plenty to bitch about next christmas. ha-ha!

Thank you @3 for pointing out how diligent we must be to overcome racism. If you thought the Nutcracker wasn't racist, I'm sure you'd be shocked to learn how racist a ubiquitous deck of playing cards is.

Spades and Clubs

A spade is clearly a derogatory term against blacks. And a club, not one of the more elegant words in the English language, is met with the connotation of weapons of war or seedy and nefarious nightclubs where awful things are more likely to occur after closing hours.

Hearts and Diamonds

Happiness and wealth, without a doubt. Did you ever see an image of a black heart? It connotes sadness, depression, and despair. And, sorry, but black diamonds indicate danger. Why else would they be used to designate the most dangerous of ski slopes?

Even more shocking, are the games. Take Canasta for example. Black 3's cost 100 points against you if you didn't go out and are holding them; whereas if you draw a red 3 you get to draw another card and each red 3 you have is worth 100 points.

Until we address racism from every angle (no matter how far fetched) we will never become enlightened as a progressive society.

@2,

It wouldn't kill dance companies to come up with Nutcracker productions that aren't racist. It's one thing if they were using choreography and staging from Tchaikovsky's day, but they're not. The Sendak version dates back 30 years.

And you sound exactly like the assholes who defend Zwarte piet.

It's been many years since I saw this production (which leads me to ask if @ 3 or @ 6 ever have), maybe 12 or 13, but I don't recall anything racist, jaw-dropping or otherwise, about it. Seems unlikely that something like that would be staged in Seattle without a big kerfuffle, given the region's large Asian population. After all, you can't even put on a production of The Mikado without controversy over casting the parts, can you?

@ 3, having grown up when such stereotypes were much more common (that is, when a movie like Sixteen Candles could feature a character like Long Duk Dong without generating any controversy at all), I can tell you that children do learn not to accept such stereotypes as accurate if they're taught not to be racist by their families. I wouldn't worry about any production of The Nutcracker that doesn't depend on outmoded stereotypes of the kind you describe to represent the Chinese characters.