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In response to
"Yes, although not my particular school"
by
Reagen
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In more detail
Posted by
Reagen
Sep 26 '19, 12:23
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(sorry, I wanted to do this at an actual keyboard and not on my phone)
My school's fairly monolithic White, fwiw - maybe 5% visible minority, but also relatively on the poorer side overall.
No one was condemning Trudeau, although a lot agreed that it was a terrible idea. One argued that probably everyone had an offensive costume at some point (I don't personally agree). Some saw a difference between brown and black face, or that it made a difference that it was a specific character that he was portraying (NB: I don't believe it's confirmed he was specifically "Aladdin of the Lamp", as opposed to "generic Middle Eastern" is it?). Another said "but do I want worse policies because of that?" Another mentioned a kid who did where a specific black person costume (I want to say Jay-Z?) to one of the HSs where there are a lot of Black Canadians, and got some hassle but it ultimately didn't Become A Thing.
One guy said he thought cultural appropriation was one of the biggest compliments you could make, because that means you accept that group as your own. At the same time, that same guy said he wouldn't vote for Trudeau because the outfit he wore in India, since "he doesn't show strength to the world".
Where I'm landing after a few days of thought - it's insensitive and shouldn't be done in large part because it's a huge minefield and is rarely coming from a place of respect. Blackface specifically has such a horrible history that it's just not the kind of thing you're going to pull off with people who don't know you intimately. I don't agree with the argument that "at the time people didn't know" -- of course they did. People who say that are remembering when they were kids and before *they* knew the difference. ***at the same time*** the US has a much different history with this stuff than Canada does. Which is not to say that Canada is squeaking clean on racial issues *gestures vaguely towards the north, also Africville* but we shouldn't borrow the US's divides when we don't have to, especially since we have done a much better job of integration. The notion of dividing on racial lines is kind of ridiculous in politics here -- there's no racial group that you can say is tied up by a party like you can in the US. Every major party has had a Sikh MP, if I'm not mistaken. Quebec is also its own story, where you've got the minority within the minority and all the crazy baggage that's resulted in. The joke at the time on Reddit was that it was going to help him in Quebec, and I think it's kind of true - It reminds me of 2015 and the Culturally Barbaric Practices thing, which helped the Conservatives take votes from the BQ, but helped the Liberals more since they took them from the NDP since the Liberals were *less* outraged.
But the reason people shouldn't do it is because when you see someone doing it, you're not going to stop and investigate just why they're doing what they're doing, you're going to make a snap judgement that that person's probably a racist. It doesn't pass the test for Trudeau, so it falls into the "stupid and inconsiderate but probably harmless" category. We judge each other on actions and ourselves on intent. But we probably have a good idea of intent here. I think some Conservatives want this to be an "a ha we caught you that means you lose" but we all know politics doesn't work that way. What does this incident show us about what's going to happen in Canada in the next four years? Basically nothing. It's irrelevant to the running of the country.
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