Justin Trudeau

We weren’t ‘woke’ then. You shouldn’t judge people’s past actions by today’s standards, in my opinion. Life moves on. What was acceptable once isn’t now. What is acceptable now won’t be in 20 years I daresay.

I'm with you, Rosina...

If he is guilty of racism then so am I. Many years ago at school, in the 1950's, (I was about 13/14 years old) I was chosen as one of the three wise men to each sing a verse of "We Three Kings of Orient Are". I was the one with the turban and the blacked up face. (well, more brownish really). I was so nervous and trembled my way through it as I, (and 2 other girls) had to walk the full length of the school hall, singing, and then go up onto the stage.
I don't think I was guilty of racism. I didn't have a clue.
To condemn Mr.Trudeau is utterly ridiculous.

People need to get a grip! So he darkened his face and dressed as an arabian at an arabian night theme party twenty years ago! I dressed as a french person once with beret stripey teeshirt and a string of garlic round my neck... and said ooh lah lah for most of the night! does that make me racist? most of us have dressed as a person from another country... if anyone wants to don a red wig, paint freckles on their face and sing diddly aye songs till the wee hours... away with yis... i promise i wont be offended!

Looking at the picture I am surprised he hasn't been accused of sexual harassment as he has his hand on the young lady's chest!

The world has gone mad!!!

I got chatting to a lady (or should that be a woman?) who originally came from the West Indies. She felt these witch hunts cause more trouble for her community and are rarely initiated by them.

An elderly cockney lady asked a lad on the bus if he felt he was a victim of racism. His response was that he hadn’t felt that he was until his teacher told him he was.

FGS, what about the wonderful singing of the Black and White minstrels in their shows ? Nobody complained one bit !!

EV, they sure do now!

There was an item on This Morning yesterday with a young woman complaining that she had seen Morris dancers with their faces painted black. There was a Morris dancer on explaining the tradition of it which goes back hundreds of years and is nothing to do with racism. For goodness sake.

If they ban Morris dancers from blacking up, which traditionally was done to disguise their faces so that they couldn't be identified by their bosses, please can we also ban 'hoodies' which are far more sinister and often used to conceal the face of somebody with criminal intent.

Agree Rosina. Unfortunately there is an election coming up in Canada and the opposition parties will use this for all its worth to discredit Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party. The irony is, the main opposition, the Conservative party, are much more likely to have racists in the party (my Alberta brother-in-law and his friends for sure!).

In the case of Justin Trudeau, it was insensitive - and he is right, he should have known better - but it was 20 years ago and to suggest that he should resign seems over the top to me.

The Black and White Minstrel Show is a different thing entirely. I watched it too when I was young but I had no awareness of how hurtful and insulting it was to black people - or why it was so. It is deeply offensive and I think it was quite right to drop it.

As for the Morris dancers, no racist motives were, or are, intended by the blacking of faces. However, as a black panellist on Jeremy Vine said, blacking of faces has some very degrading connotations for black people. I agree with Giles Brandreth who said that if it hurts people's feelings, why do it? Why not use another colour to signify the need in past times for workers to hide their identity?

This is an extract from BBC's Children's Newsround:

"Blackface was a practice in which black people were mocked for the entertainment of white people, and negative stereotypes were promoted across the US and Europe.

"In the early 19th Century, white actors called minstrel performers used to paint their faces black and do comedy routines about black people, which were racist.

"They would do insulting impressions of black people in very exaggerated ways - for example, mocking their accent.

"These depictions were inaccurate, hurtful and deeply offensive, but many white people saw it as an acceptable form of entertainment.

"Ben Holman, a campaign worker for the organisation Show Racism the Red Card, told Newsround: "This practice in particular came at a time when black people wouldn't be allowed on stage due to their skin colour."

When black people are directly asked if they find certain things offensive, they often do not reveal their true feelings for fear of being labelled "touchy", "over sensitive", "having a chip on their shoulder", etc, etc. I have recounted in previous threads how, when my husband first came to the UK, his white colleagues said they would change his name to make it easier for them to remember (he has a very simple name but they wanted to impose a typically English name on him). He refused and was labelled "awkward". Most of his non-white colleagues went along with this re-naming because they didn't want to be similarly labelled.

This anti-business of everything has caused untold trouble !!

Why should people be made aware ? We're all aware of the skin colours of various humans of this world, why should we be reminded all the time ? We also know, those of us who aren't ignorant nor uneducated, that we address these humans in the same way so what's the damn problem with everyone that we have to tread on eggshells all the time ? With everything ! It gets on my wick !!

So many PC phrases to remember now - so as not to offend:

Mixed race - not half caste
People ‘of colour’ - not black (but at one time they themselves wanted that rather than being called ‘coloured’) - hard to keep up since we’ve almost but not quite, reverted back.
Asian - not ‘paki’ - but a lot of Indian people who don’t like Pakistani still use the term.

Remember we used to say ‘crippled’? Now it’s ‘has mobility issues’ (I think)

And now it’s Down syndrome - not mongoloid.

We have to learn to keep up and not offend.

How many of these " anti's " whingers go abroad or even sunbathe here ? What is the purpose of their sunbathing ? None other than to change the colour of their skin ! Laughable
You greet these sunburnt people by saying, " my word you're nice and brown !" Would you answer by saying it's a racist remark ?
Double standards,eh ?

Dunno where this idea that blackface wasn't considered offensive 20 years ago comes from. I remember in the 60s when my mum was guardian to four black overseas siblings who attended a private school here how deeply offensive it was. I think it just wasn't on most white people's radar because they didn't bother to think about it.
Also the idea that Morris dancers blacking up has nothing to do with mocking black people is mendacious. Why is it called 'Darky Day' in Padstow if it's nothing to do with race?

I've said this before---that I have 7 GGC, one is flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, the others are fair but one of them is dark, tanned skin and green eyes like Sabu in the film of the same name. Same father for all children and my GD has been stopped in the past thinking he'd been adopted or jokingly the coal-man's child but instead of my GD being hostile, she's laughed about it.
How would others react ?

When the boy was younger my GD was approached by a Spanish lady who was an artist and made a pencilled drawing of the boy, which has been framed and is on the wall in her house. Brilliant artwork.

LondonGranny "Darkie Day" has nothing to do with race. It relates to an ancient pagan celebration of the winter solstice and involves people disguising themselves by painting their faces black and wearing dark clothing (the name has now been changed to Mummers Day to avoid causing offence)

EllanVannin. I was like your relative. I bore no resemblance to my sister at all. She was all pink and blonde and I was dark and swarthy. I didn't look like either of my parents. We had the endless jokes about coalman/milkman and we all smiled. But it wasn't really very funny at all. I think my mother was quite hurt about it at times. Think about it ... you're basically saying that Mum's had an affair o-0

Trudeau was young - he did something that was OK then but now considered unacceptable. Why do we need to even know this?

I thought Trudeau made a mistake in apologising at all.
He should have said, for heaven’s sake it was a dressing up event at the school, akin to acting, or a nativity play ( children with teatowels on their heads.)An Arabian nights theme so we all dressed up ( get over it!)
Being a politician of course, he did the usual dead eyed apology.

I agree with you, lemongrove. What a ridiculous state of affairs when people are called racist for attending a fancy-dress party, and darkening their skin colour.

Who cares?

The fact that Trudeau apologised makes the complaints seem legitimate, when of course, they are not.

I wouldn't give a toss if a black man whitened his face and dressed, say, in a pin-striped suit and bowler hat for a party! Why would I?

Isn't it about time we all just ignored these stupidities, and learned to laugh a little?

Real racism will continue if people keep making such a fuss over nothing at all!