Trudeau and double standards

[Artesia]

Apparently Justin Trudeau has apologised for photos which have emerged of him with “blackface” make up. I am dying for someone to ask him why donning a costume and make up to mimic another race is offensive and worthy of apology, yet dressing up in “woman face” and demanding to be given full women’s rights should be applauded as stunning and brave.

I'm the same age as JT. I knew it was tasteless at best as a kid. 1970's. Not buying this 'oh, nobody knew it was wrong back then in 2001'!!

I knew drag was fucking tasteless by the 1980's too.

Slightly off topic but a previous poster mentioned that it was not the done thing now for little girls to dress as Princess Jasmine. What is wrong with Princess Jasmine? All the little girls in my daughter's class loved the recent live action film, have the Disney store princess Jasmine dress and dolls... What am I missing here?

Off topic to an extent, but IME that just isn’t accurate. I’ve known from certainly my early 1990s university days, if not before, that it was totally not ok

Same.! I was born in the very early 80’s and as a young child I was told my my mum that Gollywogs were wrong and offensive.

But is this a dead cat moment? What is being buried under this mountain of outrage? Are new anti-women laws under review?

I don’t think anyone really believes that Trudeau is racist, do they? Not very bright, yes; desperate to be liked, yes; but racist, no.

The more interesting point is that it’s a tangled web we weave when we go around accusing everyone else of racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, cultural appropriation and all the rest of it. Human beings do stupid things, particularly when they’re young, and they don’t deserve to be destroyed for their stupidity. But by the rules set by the woke left - rules the rest of us know are insane - Trudeau should now by turned on and destroyed by his own. If he’s not, the blatant hypocrisy of a left-wind movement that’s lost its mind, is exposed yet again and that can only be a good thing.

The guy's gonna need a cat graveyard soon.

Polishing his environmental credentials while letting the oil industry run pipelines through indigenous lands.

Wringing his hands over the huge numbers of murdered indigenous women while achieving precisely nothing.

Sacking his (indigenous, female) attorney general when she asked too many awkward questions about his cosy relationship with major property developers.

The really tragic thing for Canada is that the conservative opposition will be several orders of magnitude worse. (Think of the way the Harper government gagged government scientists.)

In his statement He expressed deep regret, and declared that his privileged background left a blind spot to such racist acts

Yep. Frat boy.

"Blackface has only recently been understood to be offensive..."

That statement ranks with the one about Columbus 'discovering' America in 1492.

Regards Trudeau's upbringing, his dad insisted he went to the local comp on the same bus as the other kids, so he did. ....with a police escort.

What am I missing here?

You’re missing that the left has lost its mind and that the rules of identity politics, which we’re all being forced to goose-step along with, are utterly pitiless. You are racist, I am racist, a 6 year old child is racist, a man who touches a woman’s knee is a misogynist, not believing that a man can be a woman makes you a transphobe. Under the new rules everything you’ve ever said or done can be used against you to bring you down and you’ll be forced to confess and apologise in front of a jeering crowd before they destroy your career. What’s in your heart in unimportant because the rule-makers know better even than you what your true beliefs are.

I hope that the lovely photos of your daughter as Princess Jasmine never surface because they will no doubt be used as evidence of her racism in years to come.

I feel that Trudeau has been hoist by his own woke petard.

I can't stand the man. He's all about the self-publicity and presenting himself as some paragon of liberal virtue. He's not. Self-ID has been immensely harmful for women in Canada. The Kinder Morgan pipeline will be devastating for Indigenous peoples and wildlife:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/14/trans-mountain-pipeline-expansion-trudeau-indigenous-communities

He's a vile little man. As for the blackface, well, once might be forgivable, but three times? Come on. This is a man who must have actively enjoyed mocking black people.

What on earth does his privileged background have to do with the price of butter?

This was 2001, everyone knew blackface was considered offensive in 2001. Hell, everyone has known it for as long as I can remember and I'm two years younger than Tradeau.

What he actually means is 'I'm a spoiled little rich boy who thinks the rules don't apply to me, you know, like Boris Johnson or Donald Trump, but with a prettier face'.

What he actually means is 'I'm a spoiled little rich boy who thinks the rules don't apply to me

What’s even worse Arnold is that he is using his privilege as an excuse. Read one report in which he referred to his background and ‘white privilege’ as the reason why he made this mistake!

I agree with posters who say his liberalism has just really been a tick box exercise. Sad really as there was a lot of hope when he was elected.

Trudeau blaming his privileged background for landing him in this mess is actually an affluenza defence.

/slight derail

I think loads of people had realised by 2001 that this was dodgy. But others, within particular enclaves, still thought is was fine. What this tells us is the world Trudeau inhabited and it's fair to assume still inhabits to some degree. That's what he's desperate to shut this down.
*
It's pretty similar to Prince Harry dressing as a Nazi for a laugh. Everyone in his world thought it was hilarious. Many outside saw arrogance and privilege.*

I agree with the first paragraph but I don't agree it is similar to Prince Harry wearing a swastika to a fancy dress party (he wasn't dressed in full Nazi regalia)

I was quite bemused at the time that he was slated so much but the fact that young aristocrats thought it was ok to have a fancy dress party themed "colonials and natives" in 2005 passed without comment.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4170083.stm

Colonials and natives to me recalls the mindset of "civilized for the conquerers and barbaric for the indigenous people" - it's how colonials viewed the world. I always felt that choosing to wear a swastika as a colonial costume was a bit of a barbed jab at people (in his enclave) with that mindset.

William was far smarter and went dressed as a lion thus avoiding unfortunate photos dressed in "native" costume (unacceptable) or "colonials" (possibly unacceptable if he chose the wrong type of colonial)

This is a man who must have actively enjoyed mocking black people.

Oh, come on. Do you REALLY think Justin Trudeau was or is a secret racist? That he secretly has always despised people of other ethnicities and races? That all this time he’s been masquerading as the World Champion of Diversity in an attempt to secretly spread his white supremacy views?

Nobody really thinks this, surely?

You don’t know what was in his mind when he did this. (Very little, I’d imagine, as per usual with JT). We all need to stop playing the thought-crime game. It’s revolting, divisive and incredibly destructive.

This story says NOTHING about JT’s racism and everything about the hideous nature of identity politics. He is now caught by the horrible set of authoritarian rules that HE helped devise. He would have leapt on the bandwagon of scorn if it has been someone else wearing blackface to that party. The rules of identity politics don’t work and the more the hypocrisy of those who devise them is exposed, the better.

I have to admit the position of Trudeau's hand in the photo is well dodgy.

I've loads of drunken photos from my youth where we have our arms slung round each other but none have a bloke with his hand like that - not even with couples in shot. The only thing that comes close is one where the group is in the process of falling over.

I really hope she was his girlfriend.

I don’t think anyone really believes that Trudeau is racist, do they? Not very bright, yes; desperate to be liked, yes; but racist, no.

Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidité.

This story says NOTHING about JT’s racism and everything about the hideous nature of identity politics. He is now caught by the horrible set of authoritarian rules that HE helped devise.

I couldn't agree more. Also I think it would suit JT for discussion to be about racism. At that point he can do a mea culpa, say "It saddens me to learn that somewhere deep down I'm a little bit racist. But then doesn't that apply to all of us? The learning point from this is that we all need to try harder and call out racism wherever we see it."

“How do you look someone in the eye that has mocked the lived reality that I have lived – but, more importantly, what a lot of Canadians have lived,” said Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic party.

The comparisons are obvious. I hope some brave journalist makes this a very public one.

This story says NOTHING about JT’s racism and everything about the hideous nature of identity politics. He is now caught by the horrible set of authoritarian rules that HE helped devise. He would have leapt on the bandwagon of scorn if it has been someone else wearing blackface to that party. The rules of identity politics don’t work and the more the hypocrisy of those who devise them is exposed, the better

Absolutely!

@servalan7
Juells not these Morris dancers they were dressed as black US footballers in an area hundreds of miles from the sea.

Thanks for the explanation*

I don't accept at all the point made by PPs that it wasn't known at the time that 'brown face' was insulting. He must be oblivious if he didn't know.

*that comes across as being sarcastic, but is meant as a genuine 'thanks for the information' 😳

Oh, come on. Do you REALLY think Justin Trudeau was or is a secret racist? That he secretly has always despised people of other ethnicities and races? That all this time he’s been masquerading as the World Champion of Diversity in an attempt to secretly spread his white supremacy views?

No, I don't think he has "always despised people of other ethnicities and races". I don't imagine he's some type of Adolf Hitler character. But there are degrees of racism, and I think wearing blackface demonstrates an unpleasant mockery of black people, and a casual insensitivity to their feelings.

It's in much the same way that there are millions of men who wouldn't dream of hitting or sexually assaulting a woman, but still think that women really aren't quite as clever or as able as men are.

It's in much the same way that there are millions of men who wouldn't dream of hitting or sexually assaulting a woman, but still think that women really aren't quite as clever or as able as men are.

...and don't see anything wrong with 'womanface', think it's hilarious, and believe that men can become women by just saying so.

The learning point from this is that we all need to try harder and call out racism wherever we see it

Jesus, can we not just progress to a point where we can live our lives as individuals and not be so obsessed with rootling out racist (or homophobic or transphobic or sexist) thought-crime in ourselves and others? Frankly I really don’t want to have to go around “trying harder” and endlessly “calling out” each and every transgression I see or uncover from someone else’s boring, inconsequential past life.