Blackface and Brownface: The Disappointment of Trudeau

When I first read about Time magazine revealing on September 18, 2019 an old photo of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in brownface, I thought: someone is muckraking, and what is brownface, anyway? Then I saw the photo. Then I saw the photo and video Global News discovered of him in blackface. Blackface I've known for decades is an outward sign of internal racism. I had no idea Canadians of a certain anti-people of colour bent did the same for those of us from Asia. I could never have guessed at this aspect of Trudeau's character. I could not imagine even Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, whose party has been accused of racism, wearing blackface or brownface.
At first, Canadians were appalled. Disappointed. Then Trudeau apologized. Trudeau is a master of words and of communication. His apology seemed sincere, contrite. He was taking responsibility, he said. I wasn’t sure how him apologizing was taking responsibility.
An apology is an apology.
Admitting to an act you’ve been found out on is not coming forward but admitting to the obvious.
Taking responsibility is explaining why he no longer sees blackface and brownface as acceptable, when he learned its history, how blackface marginalizes Black Canadians, what he will do to change the systemic thought processes that lead to people like him doing things that they believe they won’t be caught out on, speaking directly to the Canadians he was prejudiced against and making fun of, what kind of programs and policies a Liberal government would set up to educate current Canadians and future immigrants and students on blackface, brownface, racial stereotypes, and so on.
On Twitter, Matt Hayles, a white man tweeted, “Honestly tho, I’m not interested in what white people have to say about Trudeau putting on brown face.”
I replied, “I will say how white people respond tells me a lot, especially Liberals. So for that reason, I’m interested.” He thought that was fair.

The response of my Tweeps ranged from flat-out calling Trudeau a racist and no longer voting for Liberals to — and this was the majority — he apologized, let’s move on, who hasn’t done stupid things as a teen they wouldn’t want revealed. The latter was disappointing. I really don’t know how to process people who consider themselves progressive accepting Trudeau’s apology as being enough and there’s nothing more to discuss, as if his current actions as Prime Minister erases the thought process behind his past actions, as if all three photos/video don’t reflect a pattern of thought, as if he conducted himself as an unthinking high school teen just like them.
It’s interesting to me that Canadians, in order to accept his apology and dismiss his racist act as him not being racist, needed to create the fabrication that the brownface photo and blackface video were high school hijinks, when in fact he was an adult male. And not only an adult, but an instructor, a teacher, someone who is a role model to impressionable younger minds.
Role models generally don’t role model racist stereotypes even in fun unless they’re part of a group who sees minorities as inferior and know that no one will challenge his modelling including any minorities present. Complicit minorities are key to continuing oppression in all its forms.
Role models don’t repeat racist stereotypes unless this is an inherent part of their thinking and acceptable by their social groups.

Trudeau asked about what his father would say, replied:
"My father raised me to try and defend people’s rights. One of our family mottos has always been “provide counterweights.” . . . This is certainly something I think my father wouldn’t be pleased with, how I behaved, but perhaps [he] would feel that taking responsibility for things is important."
Trudeau had the benefit of growing up in a powerful political environment. His role model was his father Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who brought home the Constitution and gave us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and he was educated by the Jesuits, a group renowned for their rigorous instruction and teaching of critical thinking. Justin Trudeau didn’t have the usual education. He had an education that would’ve exposed him to the racism’s destructiveness and inculcated in him a complete anathema to things like brownface and cavorting like a Black-man-as-monkey stereotype. Yup, it took me until today, Monday, September 23, 2019 to consciously see that in the video, Trudeau not only wore blackface, he did it to portray the revolting stereotype, the stereotype that had been condemned for years before he did it on a remote Canadian river. Did my internalized racism blind me to that particularly repugnant aspect of the video? Or was it so awful, I simply couldn’t process that my Prime Minister, a man younger than me, better educated than me, would ever have thought like that and behaved like that?
People who are that racist don’t suddenly become non-racist nor gradually without the great motivator of shame.
Blackface and brownface shames people; Trudeau expressed no shame at shaming the shamed.
“I’m disappointed in myself; I’m pissed off at myself for having done it. I wish I hadn’t done it, but I did it and I apologize for it.
Reporter: Why has it taken so long for you to apologize for this, you’ve know that this happened a long time ago.
Justin Trudeau: I’ve been…. I’ve been forthright when this has came forward that it is something that I regret deeply having done.” (Global News transcript of Trudeau presser, 18 September 2019)
“Quite frankly, I was embarrassed. It was not something that represents the person I’ve become, the leader I try to be, and it was really embarrassing.” (Global News transcript of Trudeau presser, 19 September 2019)
Trudeau never once indicated he was ashamed of his past. He was:
  • Disappointed in himself.
  • Pissed off at himself.
  • Embarrassed.

He seemed to speak directly to Canadians who must deal with the exhausting, daily undermining of Canadian racism by saying,

"I want to begin by saying a few words directly to racialized Canadians who face discrimination every single day in their lives even in a country like Canada. What I did hurt them, hurt people, who shouldn’t have to face intolerance and discrimination because of their identity. This is something that I deeply, deeply regret. Darkening your face, regardless of the context of the circumstances is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface. [I] should have understood that then and I never should have done it."

What a contrast to how NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh talked directly to affected Canadians:

He didn’t answer why he didn’t reveal these incidents — plural, representing a pattern of thinking and behaviour NOT a one-off stupid prank — to anyone. He would hardly have forgotten them.
If one believes he’d forgotten them, then that means it was such a routine part of his life, it was not memorable.
If one believes he knew and chose not to reveal and knowing he was brought up in the inner circles of political power, he knew enough that if he was to reveal those incidents, there would go any chance at grabbing the ultimate ring of power: the Prime Ministership.
Which is worse: him routinely portraying Black stereotypes or calculatingly hiding his actions?
Since he cannot remember how many times he used brownface and blackface, perhaps this was routine?

However, what really rocked me was the reaction of Canadians of colour. I'm aware that Canada, being a country of immigrants that views itself as not racist, barely educates students on racist acts like blackface and doesn't educate adult immigrants. And so I understand why immigrants from India and elsewhere would be unaware of blackface history and see it as dressing up. But why would those who face discrimination daily, know and see blackface as a racist act, and are appalled by it then say: "Move on. He's not a racist. I'm voting for Trudeau."?
I attempted to answer this question on Psychology Today this morning. I wrote in part:
A non-racist cannot by definition do a racist act.
My first thought was: this is like Stockholm Syndrome, where the captors align themselves with their kidnappers or, in this case their oppressors, in order to stay safe. My second was that we'd already seen signs of racism in this election. Whereas Canadians trumpeted the candidacy of Barack Obama as historical for Blacks, they dismiss the historicity of the first Federal party leader of colour, Jagmeet Singh, rationalizing it as not having a chance to win and so won't support him. Is the response to Trudeau's racist enthusiastic embracing of blackface part of the reason why Canadians cheered Obama but jeer Singh?
Internalized racism includes minimization or acceptance of oppression.
Wikipedia on internalized racism explains the Appropriated Racial Oppression Scale (AROS) as designed to measure internalization of oppression by all racial minorities.
"In the AROS, Campón and Carter use items such as "There have been times when I have been embarrassed to be a member of my race," "I would like for my children to have light skin," and "People take racial jokes too seriously" to assess an individual's level of internalized racism.”
This last is the kind of minimization we're seeing in Canadians of colour. Trudeau cannot be racist with his 2015 co-opting of Toronto's motto "Diversity our Strength," creating the first cabinet made up of 50 percent women, and putting men in turbans in important portfolios. That is what Trudeau projected to Canadians.
A former senior advisor to the Liberal government, Omer Aziz, told CBC radio's The House on Saturday, September 21, 2019:
"Sometimes a slip of the tongue is not just a slip of the tongue. It's a slip of the mask," he said to host Chris Hall.
"I basically had to leave my dream job because of racist prejudices that went unacknowledged."
Trudeau presented an outward face of diversity; behind the scenes, it was racist business as usual including in the department of his greatest champion, a woman, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. Trudeau's well-emoted and expressed apologies exposed his present-day racism.

It was writing the above that finally brought into my consciousness that the video wasn't just showing blackface but Trudeau's point of view that Black man is a monkey. That's why the camera panned down and why it showed them cavorting.

I cannot express how much I'm disgusted, repulsed, saddened, outraged, disbelieving.

Twitter conversation. in the US there was a huge swell for idea of first Black President, nada for idea of 1st brown PM.

Two white women tweeting me to ask if I want to talk about it.
Two white women asking me to discuss this issue as if this is about my feelings was a rather strange reaction. Then I realized it's a subtle way to diminish my experience and knowledge into the realm of feelings. They didn't answer my reply:

I've experienced racism on two continents from two sides of the fence. I don't wish to discuss my experiences nor should I have to, to prove racism exists, when examples abound.

Internalized racism is why the Sikh man in the brownface photo with Trudeau said that this was no big deal. Minorities and women who accept the narrative of white men in power enable the white man to stay in power and these minorities and women get the benefits of being accepted and acceptable to those who have so much control over their lives. They see the ugly diminishing and ostracizing (at best) that happens to those of us who challenge the status quo, who point out the subtle racism of Canadians, and who are told that x is not a racist so x’s acts cannot be racist acts or if they are, it’s no big deal because he includes everyone. Yup, he includes everyone as long as they accept he remains in full control of power.
In a sense, this is a Canadian style of white supremacy, one that doesn’t cause division. It encourages internalization of racism and genderism and ableism. It rationalizes white male leaders as being the same as women and people of colour and those with disabilities because they look like an ally and use all the right current terms. It uses this rationalization to keep power and decision-making in the hands of white people and is the reason why the media may criticize politicians for racism but ensure that, for example, the press corps for Trudeau’s campaign have nary a person of colour and thus no person of colour can change the narrative to one that exposes how pervasive and destructive and demeaning Canadian-style systems of keeping whites supreme, is.

One thing about it: Canadians can choose not to vote for the first Prime Minister of colour, safely believing their decision isn't founded on racism.
I don’t know why Canadians need to import American-style white supremacy when the Canadian style has worked so very well to keep white men in full control of the most powerful political offices, corporations, many medical specialties and research, health care expenditures, media outlets, and reportage and thus all our lives.

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