This turned out to be a very brief post today. I’d thought to write about the “Blackface Scandal” currently enveloping the Canadian federal election… but the truth is I’ve got nothing to contribute.
Oh, I can share my personal experience of shock and dismay, but that’s not much different than every other white person’s reaction over the past couple of days. I can express my concern that this will impact the election (which of course why the images were released; this is textbook ratfuckery) and that we might end up with a Scheer government but that seems crass and political. I can even say “I love and support my PoC friends and they shouldn’t have to suffer this” which is true… and in fact so true that I shouldn’t have to say that. It should be one of those self-evident things like how awful it is to dress up in fucking blackface.
But frankly, none of that breaks new ground; it’s not helpful, it doesn’t present a radical new angle, and it isn’t even particularly relevant. The last thing this scandal needs is another white pundit interjecting his opinion into the situation. So what I’m going to do is use this platform I’ve got to amplify the voices of people of colour.
NDP leader Jaghmeet Singh’s response, of course, was spot-on and potentially a game changer for his leadership prospects. There’s already been a lot of analysis, and there will doubtlessly be more to come… probably for many years.
Shree Paradkar, the Toronto Star’s race and gender columnist, wrote an excellent piece about the need for a deeper and more look at racism in Canadian politics than mere short-term outrage at a particular incident. (The article is behind a paywall, but if you have an account or at least haven’t used up your free reads for the month it’s definitely worth spending one of them on it.)
Hamilton activist and community organizer Shahzi Yasmin wrote a post on her Facebook page that resounded with me — and contributed to my decision on today’s blog post — reminding everyone that it is not the place of white people to accept Trudeau’s apology or to make excuses for him, that any community response or acceptance must come PoC, and that white folks need to stop trying to hijack the conversation for their own convenience and comfort.
Activist and Fareed Khan, manager of the Rohinga Human Rights Network, published a statement on the Canadians United Against Hate page on Facebook, reminding Canadians that while Trudeau’s past behavior was reprehensible, he accepted the Prime Minister’s apology and contextualized it within the current behaviour of his political rivals, stating that “The only politicians who can legitimately criticize the PM for this incident are those who come from minority communities that have been victimized by racism themselves. The effort of the leaders of the Conservative Party and the People’s Party of Canada to demonize the PM for this incident are highly hypocritical given their record on issues of racism.“
I could keep posting these statements for many pages, but I’ve got appointments to get to today. There are so many people of colour who have weighed in on this situation and who will continue to do so as this scandal plays out: I encourage all white Canadians to seek out and listen to their opinions, particularly those accounts which include lived experiences of Canadian racism. Not as a short-term, shallow fetishization of racialized people’s opinions until the scandal ends, but as a teachable moment, a way for white Canadians to come to grips with the pervasive and omnipresent role that racism and colonialism plays in Canadian culture every day. Do so respectfully and place the voices of PoC in the central focus.
People of Colour in this country are the victims, not just of Justin Trudeau’s appalling blackface antics almost twenty years ago, but of a multitude of similar racist aggressions throughout their entire lives. Canada has a racism problem. It needs to be seen as what it is: systemic, endemic and unresolved. And there can be no resolution until white Canadians recognize that fact and commit to ending it.
