September
21, 2019 2.51 am AEST
The news
that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau performed in blackface when he was a student
and a teacher has once again made blackface the topic of the day — this time in
the middle of a Canadian election campaign.
The
revelation that, as a 29-year-old teacher, Trudeau appeared in blackface at an
“Arabian Nights” fundraiser at his school has made news around the world. Other
images subsequently surfaced that showed a young Trudeau performing in
blackface at high school talent shows.
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The
controversy over Trudeau’s actions should be front-page news. Blackface,
wherever it occurs, is a racist practice, rooted in deeply anti-Black
motivations, regardless of whether those who commit it and enjoy it realize
this.
But in these
instances, what we most need to pay attention to is not the intent or the level
of ignorance of the person who wears blackface. Rather, our focus needs to be
on the embedded racial logics that drive blackface and the negative impacts of
the practice on Black people.
An alluring
practice
We must ask
ourselves why blackface has been, and continues to be, such an alluring
practice when non-Black people want to have fun — and why this continues to be
so, even though Black communities have always
vociferously objected to blackface.
As someone who researches the phenomenon of contemporary Canadian
blackface, I have always been troubled that mainstream responses to
blackface have focused on the sensational rather than the need to do something
about the anti-Blackness that undergirds it. I am particularly troubled now
that this incident involves a political leader and occurs just before a federal
election.
In other
words, it occurs at a time when meaningful decisions can be made about the
direction the government might take to address the issue of anti-Blackness.
When speaking to reporters
after the blackface photos emerged during the Canadian election, Trudeau said
he was ‘more enthusiastic about costumes than is sometimes appropriate.’
Trudeau was criticized for cultural appropriation during his 2018 India visit
when he and his family dressed in traditional Indian clothing. THE
CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
These recent
incidents, like those before it, confirm the existence of a widespread
anti-Blackness. This is what informed Trudeau’s return, again and again, to blackface:
he was assured his friends and colleagues would enjoy his shenanigans.
Widespread
anti-Blackness
This
anti-Blackness is also systemic. That’s why it occurs so often in institutional
settings. For example, it recurs in educational settings, as it did
with Trudeau. It recurs among police officers.
Where
anti-Blackness is not expressed as wanton violence against Black people, it is
often expressed as a complete disregard for the histories, the lives and the
voices of Black people.
Our criminal
justice systems are virulently anti-Black — which explains why we
tolerate the over-surveillance and disproportionate Black deaths at the hands of the
very law enforcers who are supposed to protect us, at least
in theory.
Our
education systems are virulently anti-Black, which explains why blackface
recurs where Black people have to go to school. It also explains the pervasive
omission of our histories, our scholarship, our perspectives and our stories from education curricula.
On and on …
it’s entrenched
Our child welfare systems are virulently anti-Black. Arts and
entertainment is virulently anti-Black. Media is virulently anti-Black, and on
and on. Anti-Blackness is entrenched, and we are all implicated.
Read more: The problem with blackface
When we
choose to individualize blackface incidents, when we make them solely about
labelling the person who wore blackface as “racist,” when we suggest that
blackface says more about personal failings than about the systemic
anti-Blackness of which blackface is only a symptom, this serves to absolve
everyone else — primarily ourselves — from thinking about our implication in
anti-Blackness.
We lose
sight of our individual and collective obligation to demand and take action
against anti-Blackness.
The
appropriate response to Trudeau’s blackface cannot be the politics of
deflection. On the one hand, it cannot be about empty apologies that claim
little more than ignorance, “insensitivity” or even “privilege,” which
rectifying very little. On the other hand, it cannot be about finger-pointing,
“disappointment” or “shock,” which deny the endemic nature of anti-Blackness.
It cannot be
about claims that we are unimplicated in anti-Blackness — either because we
have never worn blackface or because it has been some time since we did.
The appropriate
response to Trudeau’s blackface would be for all leaders seeking election to
ensure that their campaign platforms contain commitments to name and disrupt
institutional anti-Blackness.
Jagmeet Singh, leader of the
New Democrats and the first person of colour to lead a major Canadian political
party, has said the fallout from the Trudeau blackface scandal should lead to a
wider discussion about racism. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
These
commitments need to be more than flowery value statements. They need to be
meaningful, substantive policy statements — developed in consultation with
Black communities — that will make a discernible difference, and upon which
leaders will follow through after the election.
Posing tough
questions
The
appropriate response should not be for the electorate to cast their votes based
on a cult of personality. Instead, they should scour the party platforms for
evidence of commitment to counter anti-Blackness, to pose tough questions and
vote accordingly if there are none.
Remember,
anti-Blackness is made of disregard. Silence in the party platforms about the
issues that Black people face would be evidence of that disregard.
And what
might some of these commitments look like? Here are a few suggestions:
·
Commitments to expunge the criminal records of the disproportionate numbers of Black people criminalized
for marijuana possession.
·
Commitments to concretely hold law enforcers accountable for the
disproportionate incarceration and death of Black and Indigenous people, and to
provide better access to justice for Black, Indigenous and racialized people in
Canada.
·
Commitments to halt the removing of disproportionate numbers of
Black and Indigenous children and youth from their families by child
“protective” services.
·
Commitments to appropriately incentivize and fund Black studies
and the hiring of Black professors in universities in a manner that suggests
that Black lives actually matter in Canada.
·
Commitments to not just speak out against but act boldly against
policies that blatantly contravene the rights of those who wear religious
symbols in Québec (instead of dancing around the issue for political
expedience).
It would
take only a little imagination and consultation with Black communities to come
up with several more.
Unfortunately,
this may ultimately not be what the majority of the electorate will demand, but
it would be the right thing to do. Trudeau needs to be held to account for his
love of blackface, but the intervention cannot end there.
The most
anti-Black outcome from this latest story would be for it to eventually blow
over without any substantive change to what Black people might expect from
elected officials.
Black people
and our issues cannot continue to be pawns in a grand chess game that
ultimately serves to deflect attention from what Black people really want.