What a pillock

Before I say anything else, let me say this: I am a white person. And the opinions I am about to offer are those of a white person. When I first started school I did have insults hurled at me and that was because I wore glasses. It may have been upsetting on occasion, but this is a white kid’s problem. I can never have the same visceral reaction to the photo of the week as a person of colour would.

So, the photo.

This guy is an idiot, a teacher at a private school in Vancouver who decided his costume for an Arabian nights-themed end of term party wasn’t enough: it required the addition of blackface (and hands). Imagine the reaction when he turned up at the party. “Oh, Justin, you’re such a card!” Pillock.

This is a rich, overly privileged, astonishingly thoughtless white guy.

Is he racist? Everyone has prejudices. Some are subconscious, some are roiling in their blood.

This (Virginia governor Ralph Northam, pictured left, in his medical school yearbook) is a racist. This man had contempt for an entire race of people in his heart when he donned blackface for a party. He knew exactly what he was doing.

There is a difference.

Privilege excuses nothing. Just as Prince Harry once got himself in very hot water for thinking it would be funny to turn up at a costume party dressed as a Nazi, Justin Trudeau deserves to be pilloried for being a complete jerk. Especially as it turns out this was the third time (that we know about) that he’d appeared in blackface. (‘Day O’ in a high school talent contest? Seriously, Justin? Could you have been a more obnoxious teenager?)

And now Justin Trudeau is the prime minister of Canada with a general election looming in a month. The media are having a field day. As you would expect. Day four and it’s still front page news. And why not? The hypocrisy of this avowedly oh-so-inclusive white politician wearing blackface 18 years ago is absolutely delicious.

According to his homophobic Conservative opponent, Trudeau has “lost the moral authority to govern”.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not Justin Trudeau ever had any moral authority (what does that even mean these days?), if I had to choose between a thoughtless frat boy and a man who truly believes abortion is murder, same sex marriage is wrong and children would be better off home schooled or in a private school, I’d pick the frat boy. (Fortunately there are more than two choices, so I don’t have to pick either of them. Phew.)

There are a lot of things I could (and in the coming days no doubt will) say about Justin Trudeau. For now (from my white person perspective) I will say this.

I did know that Justin Trudeau had once been a schoolteacher in Vancouver. What I did not know was that he taught in a private school, not a public school. To be honest, I am more irritated by that than I am by a photo of an insensitive idiot.

A private school. Really? What an elitist prick.