Trudeau's Blackfacegate: moving right along

You know me - I'm going to wade right in about Blackfacegate. I've spent two days defending Trudeau on FB, as people I consider friends, people on the left, howl in outrage. Maybe it's because I was once an actor and put on other people's clothes and faces for a living, but once again, as with JWR, I cannot understand the level of vituperation. He did a foolish, even offensive thing, yes. It was a time ago and he regrets it deeply. 'Nuff said.

Which of us has not done things we regret?

I wrote this on FB:

Times change; people change. In a letter my British aunt wrote to my mother in the 50’s, she describes someone as looking “like a Jew,” she wrote, “short, fat, and greasy.” My mother, married to a Jewish man, didn’t even notice her sister’s casual anti-Semitism. Aged twelve, I wrote in my diary, “There’s a coloured girl in our class now! She’s nice!!” I had not a single thought about racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or, for that matter, what was happening to our planet. Times change; people change. What matters is to acknowledge mistaken assumptions and hurtful stereotypes and make sure they don’t happen again. Please, in your haste to condemn a young man’s foolish mistakes – yes, a man who should have known better and has apologized — don’t condemn this country to the unforgivable racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia of Andrew Scheer and his party. Voters decided to hate and turf the good-hearted if flawed Kathleen Wynne – and how did that turn out, Ontario?

Here I repost:

Quoting Catherine Barroll: At a time when the world was turning them away, Trudeau invited 25,000 Syrian refugees to settle here in the first year and met some at the airport personally. Since his election, 60,000 Syrians have found a home here. He appointed the first Indigenous female Attorney General. He has a Sikh Minister of Defense. He marches in the Pride Parade. The idea that a Conservative party that has tacitly encouraged White Supremacy advocates as representatives and even leaders, which is anti LBGQ, anti feminist, and anti choice, is calling him a racist for this, is beyond ridiculous.

And one more, sorry, can't help myself:

 I keep wishing Canadians knew a bit more about politics in other countries, where there are real scandals, really appalling, disgusting things that politicians get away with. They've had centuries of it, whereas we throw our hands up in horror when we realize that the politician elected to govern this country is actually a politician. Of course he attacks when he has to, as they all do. It's horrible, but it's what's done. Again, I know he is far from perfect. But he's so much better than the alternative. We all know May and Singh are not going to form a government, but the more of us who vote for them in this crucial election, the closer Scheer comes to being elected. And I truly think I'll have to move if that happens, because just looking at his face turns my stomach. (But move where??) You talk about hypocrisy - Scheer condemning Trudeau for racism, he with a good friend of Faith Goldy's running for office! This country will be unrecognizable if he and his Koch-supported friends get in. Which is why I'm begging people to keep things in perspective instead of piling on.

I have a cold, the first one in a long time. Maybe it's the stress of watching the ghastly Andrew Scheer leer on the horizon. But it's glorious out, so I'm on the deck with a head like a pumpkin and a nose like a waterspout, taking in the last blaze of summer - roses, rudbekia, hydrangea. It says in the paper that millions of birds have disappeared in the last 50 years, but I can hear the busy cardinal, the sleepy sparrows. Others are protesting climate change, but our big march is next Friday; I will be there, with my daughter and grandsons.

We do our best in our tiny ways to support our battered planet. And one way I do it is by responding on FB and sharing my thoughts with you. What ARE your thoughts?

PS Got involved in another fight on FB - this time a young woman posted several times about exactly what white people are and are not allowed to say and I simply asked how she had come to appoint herself the political correctness police and why she was so angry. The response ... oh my. Among other things, she accused me of being "racist, like your prime minister." Before it went on much longer, another person wrote to me, "Don't feed the bears." So right. It's scary out there. Lots of screaming.

PPS Picture from my friend Chris's blog. What to say, the guy just likes to play dressup! He was a drama teacher once.