{"id":246051,"date":"2020-02-25T03:16:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T08:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=246051"},"modified":"2020-02-25T03:16:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T08:16:58","slug":"trudeau-revisits-blackface-embarrassment-during-black-history-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/02\/25\/trudeau-revisits-blackface-embarrassment-during-black-history-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Trudeau revisits blackface embarrassment during Black History Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FJustinPJTrudeau%2Fposts%2F10158620005050649&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"707\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nOTTAWA &#8212; Justin\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0acknowledged his own past history of unconscious racism during a celebration Monday of Black History Month.<\/p>\n<p>The prime minister reflected on the \u201cdumb choices\u201d he made when he donned blackface and brownface multiple times in younger days.<\/p>\n<p>Photos and a video of\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0wearing makeup to darken his skin surfaced during last fall&#8217;s election campaign, rocking the Liberal campaign and forcing\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0to profusely and repeatedly apologize for behaviour he said he didn&#8217;t realize at the time was wrong, but which he belatedly acknowledged was \u201ca racist thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Monday,\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0raised the embarrassing disclosure of the photos during a question-and-answer session with broadcast journalist Marci Ien during an evening reception celebrating Canada&#8217;s black community.<\/p>\n<p>Trudeau\u00a0said all Canadians need to stop avoiding difficult questions and take a hard look at systemic discrimination against black Canadians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, taking that hard look certainly came to a head last fall during the election campaign and reflection on my own choices of many years ago and how that actually hurt people today that I had made really dumb choices that I didn&#8217;t understand the consequence for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trudeau\u00a0said it has prompted him to \u201cbe even more committed to standing with this community and fighting every day against the barriers and discrimination that are so invisible to so many people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ien noted that many people thought\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0didn&#8217;t deserve a second chance after the photos were revealed, that he was an adult in at least one of the photos &#8212; dressed as Aladdin at a 2001 costume party at a private school where he was working as a 29-year-old teacher &#8212; and should have known better.<\/p>\n<p>Trudeau\u00a0said it was \u201ca moment of deep disappointment\u201d in himself to realize that he&#8217;d \u201creally hurt\u201d people who considered him an ally in the fight against anti-black racism.<\/p>\n<p>But he said black leaders across the country encouraged him to turn the mortifying disclosure into something positive for race relations in Canada.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be on my shoulders because that is part of my story now, to make sure that I can then say, &#8216;This is what we kept working on, this is what we kept doing and this is how we as a team, as a government and me as an individual is working to make sure that &#8230; these barriers and this anti-black racism that still exists is directly addressed and minimized across this country for future generations.\u201d&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>After his remarks,\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0received a standing ovation from the several hundred people in the predominantly black audience.<\/p>\n<p>He was mobbed afterwards by people wanting to shake his hand and take selfies with him.<\/p>\n<p>This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OTTAWA &#8212; Justin\u00a0Trudeau\u00a0acknowledged his own past history of unconscious racism during a celebration Monday of Black History Month. The prime &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":246052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,54365,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-instagram","category-news","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246053,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246051\/revisions\/246053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}