Oh my God

A regular reader just wrote to me.

“Warren, look at the video again. The cameraman pans down on Trudeau.”

“Yeah? So?”

“Warren, Trudeau shoved something down the front of his pants. Because…”

“Oh my God.”




My latest: Justin Trudeau likens black people to apes. Don’t let him get away with that.

An ape?

The video is grainy. It’s blurry, and it’s hard to make out who is in it.

But we don’t have to guess. The Liberal Party of Canada has confirmed to Global News – which released the video on Thursday morning – that it depicts Justin Trudeau, the leader of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister of Canada.

Acting like an ape.

In the video, he’s covered (again) in blackface. He really worked at it, too: he made certain to smear dark make-up on his face, neck, ears, arms. Even his legs. We can see through the holes in his jeans that he did that.

There are three photographs, now, of Trudeau in blackface. One from his high school days in Montreal, and two from a party at the high school he taught at in Vancouver. With his hand on an unidentified young woman’s chest.

He was about thirty in that last photo. He was someone who taught kids – who was supposed to be setting an example for kids.

But we digress. Back to the video.

In the video, Justin Trudeau is seen for only a few fleeting seconds. There’s no sound. But it is unmistakable what the future Prime Minister of Canada and his pals are doing.

Trudeau’s acting like an ape. Sticking out his tongue, waving around his arms, shuffling around like a simian would, in a zoo or a jungle or something.

I showed the video to my shocked colleagues when they came into the office. Two of them are card-carrying Liberals. They agree with me: Justin Trudeau was in blackface, acting like an ape.

Now, why would he do that?

Brent Staples is a member of the editorial board of the New York Times. Around the time Roseanne Barr called an advisor to Barack Obama the progeny of an ape, Staples wrote an extensive study about that. About how racists like to depict black people as apes.

Like Justin Trudeau did.

Here’s Staples: “[It’s] one of the oldest and most profoundly racist slanders in American history…This depiction — promoted by slave traders, historians and practitioners of “scientific” racism — was used to justify slavery, lynching and the creation of the Jim Crow state…[It’s] the ape caricature.”

Throwing bananas at black public figures. Making noises like apes at public events. Calling Michelle Obama “an ape in heels.” It’s all aimed at one simple, incontrovertible message: that black people are animals. That they are less than whites. That they belong in cages.

At this point – and with the Trudeau in blackface leading newscasts around the planet – the evidence cannot be rebutted: the Prime Minister of Canada, as man and not just a boy, traded in the foulest racist stereotypes. He thought it was funny. He thought he could get away with it.

So, that’s him: he’s the scum of the Earth. He doesn’t deserve to be elected dogcatcher, let alone a Prime Minister of a G7 country.

Oddly, the issue isn’t him. It’s now the members of the Liberal Party. It’s us.

Will Liberal MPs now publicly condemn their “leader,” as I counselled two distressed Grit MPs to do this morning? They must.

And, Canadians, too, have a decision to make. Will we let him get away with it? Trudeau and his loathsome coterie are laying low, clearly believing this all will blow over in time. And it might, you know.

It is up to us – Canadians – to say: not good enough. Not on. Not this time.

Justin Trudeau – the goddamned Prime Minister of Canada – is on a video, this morning, joking that black people are, you know, apes.

This man is unfit. We, Canadians, must line up on October 21 and reject him and his ways.

We must.


A Hill staffer writes

Name withheld on request.

Hey Warren, now seems like a good time to tell the story of Justin Trudeau on Oct 22, 2014, the day of the shooting on the Hill.

Long story short, everyone had been moved into the 5th floor cafeteria in Centre Block. Mostly staff and media cause CPC and NDP caucus had already begun by the time of the lockdown. But LPC caucus starts later so they were having their pre-caucus meeting in their leader’s office on the 6th floor.

They moved everyone to caf throughout the day before evacuation later that night. Anyway, at one point an East Asian man walked in to the cafeteria. He had a big beard and wore a turban.

Trudeau jumped up and joked rather loudly; “Hey there you are. You know they’re looking for you out there. Hey you’re making everyone in here nervous!”

He obviously knew the man, he was a liberal staffer. The man seemed to take the joke well but that’s not really the point. Those of us who heard it looked at each other in shock.

But who will believe Conservative staffers? There were staff, MPs and media in the room. I know people heard it too. Most media were on phones doing radio hits so maybe they didn’t hear it. Anyway that’s the story from that day. Sorry for the novel.


My latest: this isn’t the face of a Prime Minister

Blackface.

I’ve been writing about, and researching – and opposing – racism for more than thirty years. And make no mistake: blackface isn’t funny.

It’s racist.

Ask Megyn Kelly. A year ago, the former Fox News star was filming a segment about Halloween costumes and “political correctness.” Someone asked whether it was acceptable for a white person to smear black makeup all over their face and pretend to be black.

Here’s what Kelly said: “But what is racist? Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween… Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

There was a massive backlash. Kelly apologized. But her show was cancelled not long afterwards.

Just this year, Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, faced demands that she resign because audio of a skit emerged from when she was in college – even though the person in blackface was her then-fiance. Not her.

Ivey still apologized.

Also this year: upscale fashion brand Gucci fired its global head of diversity because he hadn’t stopped a “balaclava jumper” from going on sale. The jumper featured an image that resembled blackface.

In Canada, we’ve experienced blackface backlash, too. Theatre impresario Robert Lepage faced protests when one of his plays apparently contained scenes that recalled blackface. Some University of Montreal students wore blackface to “pay tribute” to champion runner Usain Bolt. The university was forced to apologize for that.

So why is blackface so controversial? Why is what Justin Trudeau has done so wrong?

Because blackface is literally about white people caricaturing black people. It recalls the era when blacks were referred to as “darkies” and “coons.” It was something popularized in minstrel shows to suggest that blacks were inferior to whites. That they were stupider. That they were deserving of derision and mockery.

David Leonard, a professor at Washington State University, and an expert on the manifestations of racism, says this: “It’s an assertion of power and control. It allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human. It serves to rationalize violence and segregation.”

Is Justin Trudeau racist?

Well, his appalling treatment of a proud indigenous woman, Jody Wilson-Raybould, didn’t exactly suggest Trudeau was nearly as tolerant as he regularly claims to be. When asked about Donald Trump’s suggestion that four Democratic politicians “go back” to the “crime infested places” they came from, Justin Trudeau refused to say Trump’s racist statements were in fact racist.

Said Trudeau: “Canadians and indeed people around the world know exactly what I think about those particular comments.”

Do we really?

After Canadians have looked at that shocking photo of the Liberal prime minister mocking and denigrating black people – after the embarrassment and shame he has now brought on Canada internationally – it’s hard to know exactly what Justin Trudeau was thinking. Or if he thinks at all.

At the end of this shocking revelation, we are left with one thought: this is not the face of a prime minister.

Like Megyn Kelly, Justin Trudeau’s little show needs to be cancelled, once and for all.

Warren Kinsella is a Sun columnist and author of five award-winning books on racism.


RESIGN NOW

⁦Justin Trudeau⁩ in blackface when he was a teacher.

This guy is unfit for public office.

He needs to resign, but he won’t.

So: fire him on October 21.