There are plenty of people for whom this just underlines the generally casually racist society that we live in, yes even in Canada. Anyone telling you that there's not a racism problem in Canada is either ignorant or lying. It certainly takes a slightly different form here than it does in the US (though we've also had POC killed by police, see Jermaine Carby, Sammy Yatim, Andrew Loku, and Abdirahman Abdi), but it's still a problem here. For years here in Toronto it was the incredibly racist "carding" practice, where POC were overwhelmingly targeted.
Oppressed communities rightly see the leader of their country in blackface as a slap to their face. Don't get me wrong, I think that Scheer's on-purpose racism from today is a far bigger problem than Trudeau's casual racism almost 20 years ago, but it's not nothing. And Trudeau has made strides during his administration to increase diversity in the cabinet, but he's also made huge policy missteps, mostly relating to First Nations peoples.
And yes, there are definitely some POC communities that are genuinely upset by it. Here is Desmond Cole, columnist, podcaster, and leftist political activist:
?s=20
@DesmondCole
I'm not voting for the blackface PM Justin Trudeau to keep Conservatives out of power. We obviously have bigger issues of racism to deal with in Canada, no matter who wins. Please watch and share
https://t.co/8AkOidwzCu?amp=1
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