Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged Friday that he let down his supporters and all Canadians of colour by appearing years ago in brownface and blackface. Yet the scandal\u2019s fallout may be limited in a country without the harsh and still-divisive racial history of the neighbouring United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hurt people who in many cases consider me an ally,\u201d Trudeau told a news conference. \u201cI let a lot of people down.\u201d Trudeau, 47, is seeking a second term as prime minister in an Oct. 21 election. His leading opponent, Andrew Scheer of the Conservative Party, has assailed him as \u201cnot fit to govern\u201d because of the revelations. But key figures in the prime minister\u2019s Liberal Party have stuck by him, including Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who would be a favorite to replace Trudeau as Liberal leader if he lost the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIndeed, I think he is drawing some sympathy,\u201d Wiseman said. \u201cThis affair is a media bombshell that is bombing with the public \u2026 The international media love this story because it goes against type.\u201d Wiseman also disputed the assertion that Trudeau is a hypocrite when it comes to race and diversity, noting that his cabinet is the most diverse in Canadian history in terms of gender and ethnic background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trudeau\u2019s brownface controversy has drawn some comparisons with developments earlier this year in the U.S., where Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam withstood intense pressure to resign after a racist picture surfaced from his 1984 medical school yearbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Virginia\u2019s Christopher Newport University, said the revelations were \u201ca shock and disappointment\u201d to supporters of both Trudeau and Northam, whom they viewed as compassionate politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTrudeau has expressed genuine contrition and willingness to accept what he did as racist,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen that from Ralph Northam.\u201d Kidd also cited the divergent racial histories of the two countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged Friday that he let down his supporters and all Canadians of colour by appearing years ago in brownface and blackface. Yet the scandal\u2019s fallout may be limited in a country without the harsh and still-divisive racial history of the neighbouring United States. \u201cI hurt people who in many cases […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70880,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70878\/revisions\/70880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}