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The Scandal Around Trudeau’s Blackface Represents Our Politics Today
How the past is never truly forgotten
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past week, you will have undoubtedly seen the scandal that has been enveloping the incumbent Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Photos and videos have emerged of Trudeau donning ‘brownface’ and ‘blackface’ when he was a student and teacher.
The incidents have come to light at an unfortunate time for Trudeau who is in the middle of a campaign to get re-elected as Canada prepares to head to the polls on October 21.
Since his election in 2015, Trudeau has carefully crafted a public image that presents him as a modernising and tolerant figure. The discovery of these images has shattered that persona.
The discovery of the images presents a challenge for Trudeau in his attempts to win re-election, but they also pose another question. One of how we react to incidents in the past in the lives of our politicians.
Like Trudeau, we will all have made mistakes in the past, but unlike Trudeau, we are not held to scrutiny and a high standard daily.
The scandal raises the fundamental question of how high a standard we hold our politicians to and whether this is beneficial or…
