Trudeau brownface

[Knuckle Ball]

The fallout from Justin Trudeau's brownface photo

A leading academic expert on blackface in Canada says Trudeau's lapse wasn't unusual for the time, but this campaign disaster is anything but ordinary
​

When Cheryl Thompson, a professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, and author of Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture, heard the news that Justin Trudeau had covered his face in heavy brown makeup to dress up as Aladdin for an Arabian Nights-themed party in 2001, she didn’t think first of her extensive academic research into the history of blackface in Canada.

Instead, Thompson’s memory flew back to one Halloween when she was a high school student in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough in the mid-1990s, and a teacher showed up for the school day in a blackface costume. “Nobody called the news. There was no brouhaha,” she said in an interview. “Different times. I remember thinking it was crazy, but I didn’t think it was racist.”

She does now, of course. While researching Canada’s black beauty culture at McGill University, Thompson discovered that blackface pops up frequently in Canadian archives going back to the mid-19th century. Not just a feature of the entertainment business, blackface existed in sports and social clubs, summer camps and company settings—and high schools.

Trudeau was a teacher when a photograph of him in the costume—discovered and reported on today by Time magazine—was snapped in the spring of 2001. He was 29 years old, teaching at West Point Grey Academy, a Vancouver private school, and the photo was printed in the school’s yearbook. He’s wearing a theatrical turban, too, gathered close with four happy-looking young women in party dresses.

Trudeau repeatedly apologized in a news conference held this evening on his campaign plane. “I didn’t consider it a racist action at the time, but now we know better,” he said. “This was something that was unacceptable, and, yes, racist.”

Thompson watched that news conference on TV and credited Trudeau for accepting without equivocation that what he had done was racist, rather than deflecting the word that many public figures least want pinned to their actions. “I’m satisfied with that at the first level,” she said.

She said blackface was not nearly so widely denounced in 2001 as it is now. “A lot people of a certain age, if they didn’t do it, they were at a party where somebody did it,” she said. “Think of those four women in the picture—they’re smiling. They don’t seem offended.”

Blackface has a long, troubling history in Canada, but Thompson has written that it is “rarely framed as a ‘Canadian’ pastime,” in contrast to the wider acknowledgement of how deeply rooted it is in American culture. In Canada, there’s a tendency, she says, to minimize blackface as “a few students and/or teachers making ‘innocent’ mistakes.”

Still, there seemed little chance that this fall’s Liberal campaign will be able to avoid serious backlash over the Trudeau photo. It undermines his carefully cultivated brand as a politician who champions diversity. His first campaign as Liberal leader in 2015 was credited with helping boost turnout significantly among visible-minority voters. For example, Statistics Canada said turnout among recent immigrants from Africa soared 22 per centage points in 2015 over the 2011 election, while voting rates among recent immigrants from West Central Asia and the Middle East jumped by 22 percentage points.

How much damage it causes the party on the path to the Oct. 21 vote, though, remains to be seen. It seems likely to make the Liberals think twice about continuing with their tactic of exposing evidence of past intolerance or insensitivity from Conservative candidates.

Communications consultant Jason Lietaer, a veteran Conservative strategist, said an incident like this one would derail any federal Tory leader’s campaign. “If this was Andrew Scheer or Stephen Harper, there’s no way they would make it to the finish line, or, if they did, have a chance of winning,” Lietaer said in an interview.

There would be intense pressure from inside the Conservative party to step down, he said, along with demands for a resignation from the opposition parties and pundits. Yet he didn’t recommend that Scheer go fully on the offensive. “Make a statement. Let Canadians judge for themselves,” Lietaer said, adding that the best strategy when your opponent is stumbling badly is to stand back and let them keep falling.

Later in the evening, however, Scheer reacted in the strongest terms. “Wearing brownface is an act of open mockery and racism. It was just as racist in 2001 as it is in 2019,” Scheer said, describing Trudeau as having showing himself to be a politician with “a complete lack of judgement and integrity, and someone who is not fit to govern this country.”

Compounding the issue for Trudeau is the fact that Jagmeet Singh, the NDP leader, is a turban-wearing Sikh. Singh’s statement after he saw the photo was emotional. “Seeing this image today—the kids that see this image—the people that see this image—are going to think about all the times in the life that they were made fun of, that they were hurt, that they were hit, that they were insulted, that they were made to feel less because of who they are,” he said.

Trudeau said he had already talked by phone with some of his political colleagues who might be personally affronted by the picture. He didn’t name them, but his cabinet includes, for example, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Innovation Minister Navdeep Bain, both turban-wearing Sikhs. Thompson said she hopes they don’t let him off easily. “To these people,” Thompson said, “they should be confronting him.”

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.mac...out-from-justin-trudeaus-brownface-photo/amp/


As I was saying, this used to be more common and accepted than any of terb’s resident far right loudmouths care to recall.

 

[Phil C. McNasty]

LOL.......now he doesnt remember how many times he wore blackface :biggrin1:

https://www.cp24.com/video?clipId=1784444

 

[Smallcock]

Groper Gate 2.0

A lot of dirty laundry in this guy's past.

 

[Zaibetter]

Groper Gate 2.0

A lot of dirty laundry in this guy's past.

LOL Groper gate is right !!!!

 

[Zaibetter]

They have now a video of the Groper in blackface and acting like an ape, he refused to answer if there is any more. He had no choice but to apologize and he's so fake when he answers questions on the plane.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5922861/...und06RkeUdJF2aJyRnLaOyYbCbA_6Tc-4YhK2DqwXPvOk

 

[Knuckle Ball]

When I was in university, one of the popular Frosh Week drinking songs that the upper class men used to make the 1st year students sing had the following lyrics:

She loves to gang bang
She always will
Cuz a gang bang gives her such a thrill.

When she was younger
And in her prime
She used to gang bang all the time.

But now she’s older
And turning grey
She only gang bangs twice a day.

We all sang it. It was part of the university’s hazing tradition. Today, it is clearly understood as being misogynistic and a product of rape culture...but if someone dig up a video from back in the day we would all look like a bunch of assholes.

 

[Zaibetter]

This guy has all kinds of faces.

I love it !!!!!

 

[james t kirk]

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.mac...out-from-justin-trudeaus-brownface-photo/amp/


As I was saying, this used to be more common and accepted than any of terb’s resident far right loudmouths care to recall.

No, no it wasn't "more common and accepted".

There was a HUGE uproar about Ted Danson I recall. I looked it up. It was 1993.

 

[Zaibetter]

No kidding? You're full of shit big time, I never post in the Politics threads because of arrogant asshats like you. I voted for him dumbass. I remember seeing the the picture in the past and I posted it. I'll know better next time to reply to your bullshit.

OJ? :rofl: Now you realize it? He's one of Terb's biggest egomaniac trolls, he follows people around and takes shots but doesn't post nothing himself. This is why I and several others ignore him.

 

[Captain Bly]

Id say coupled with the more recent India trip it's a more systemic issue of inappropriate cultural appropriation and Insult.

He just doesn't get it. And that's not good enough for the header of the nation.

He’s not bright enough to “get it”

 

[Uncharted]

When I was in university, one of the popular Frosh Week drinking songs that the upper class men used to make the 1st year students sing had the following lyrics:

She loves to gang bang
She always will
Cuz a gang bang gives her such a thrill.

When she was younger
And in her prime
She used to gang bang all the time.

But now she’s older
And turning grey
She only gang bangs twice a day.

We all sang it. It was part of the university’s hazing tradition. Today, it is clearly understood as being misogynistic and a product of rape culture...but if someone dig up a video from back in the day we would all look like a bunch of assholes.

You just keep beating that drum there buddy.

Again, you Leftys created this giant machine of unchecked Outrage and Judgment. Then set it loose in the world hoping it would take out all your adversaries. Now it's coming back around at your King, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Such a shame.

 

[Butler1000]

Blah blah blah. I bet if we went dumpster diving through your 20-year-old+ trash we’d find a shitload of embarrassing stuff. Same for me or any of the rest of us...and I am way more woke than you.

Actually no you won't. I have enough common sense dating back to when I was late in high school about these things. Including calling out some family members about jokes and quietly measuring friends as well.

It wasn't about how woke. Just a decent amount of respect for my fellow human beings.

 

[james t kirk]

Christie Blatchford wrote a great column about it all and she nails it when she says that JT is a hypocrite and here he is asking for us to cut him some slack, when if another politician (in any party) had been found out to have done the same thing in the past, even the distant past, JT would be calling for his head on a silver platter.

I checked out CNN and JT is front page news. Ditto the Washington Post.

He's supposed to be the Prime Minister of Canada and he has become a national embarrassment.

I'm afraid he needs to reconsider his position.

 

[Butler1000]

No, no it wasn't "more common and accepted".

There was a HUGE uproar about Ted Danson I recall. I looked it up. It was 1993.

Cripes I remember when All in the Family did an episode on it in the 70's and it caused an uproar. The purpose was to teach how wrong it was. And it still did.

 

[WyattEarp]

Christie Blatchford wrote a great column about it all and she nails it when she says that JT is a hypocrite and here he is asking for us to cut him some slack, when if another politician (in any party) had been found out to have done the same thing in the past, even the distant past, JT would be calling for his head on a silver platter.

You tell them. You won't find Capt. Kirk in green face. Make love yes, Make-up no.

 

[Boober69]

Meanwhile the Cuntservatives still ride with present day racists.

Clearly JT has grown and changed. I'll take that over someone like Scheer who is still a racist homophobe to this very day.

Funny...I haven't seen Scheer in black face multiple times?

 

[Boober69]

Blah blah blah. I bet if we went dumpster diving through your 20-year-old+ trash we’d find a shitload of embarrassing stuff. Same for me or any of the rest of us...and I am way more woke than you.

Kinda like going back 15 years and finding a locker-room discussion with Trump talking about grabbing pussy and then using that to come to the conclusion that he assaults women? Kinda like that?

 

[Boober69]

I would have, actually, unless I thought it pointed to a larger pattern of racism. In JT’s case I don’t think anyone would suggest that. His policies and decisions since taking office have in fact been the opposite.

So you prefer a hypocrite over a racist? Ok fair enough.

 

[kugel2]

David Akin, Global News political correspondent, says he has been advised that La Presse (that's right, Quebecois), has another incident of JT doing the same thing. Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me. The third time apologize like hell. What about the fourth time? He says he only recalls twice. I bet EVERYONE else in Canada can remember how many times they wore black/brown face in public.

 

[steve bettman]

Of all the costumes out there, why would anyone color their face brown or black? Anyone with an iq above room temperature knows its just asking for trouble. It speaks to a serious lack of judgement on his part, which has now become a pattern.

Nice hair though.