Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Was It Something He Said?

Probably:

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Naturally:

But that phrase wasn’t the only thing that caught my attention in Trudeau’s interview with the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt. It was when he alleged that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was yearning for the days when “white men ruled.”

To be just, here’s the whole quote: “What is he actually proposing? He’s saying everything’s broken.… He’s playing and preying on the kinds of anger and anxieties about some Canada that used to be — where men were men and white men ruled.”

Now, I acknowledge this was a descant about an opponent, and a little over the top as is always the case when a leader, Liberal or Conservative, attacks his opponent. As a close acquaintance of mind — a master of rhetoric — would phrase it, on such occasions, “Lads, fill your boots.”

Still, even in context, that last phrase bothers me. I don’t like the attention to skin colour, specifically “white.” I cannot see, of all people, this particular prime minister calling out a “skin colour” epithet in any other context, or — to be sure — any other epidermal shade than white.

As to when “white men ruled,” let’s just go back to the middle of the century just past and check the “rulers” — from Louis St. Laurent to the present day incumbent in the Prime Minister’s Office.

All of them were white. Would it be wrong to point out that most of them were also from Quebec. There were a few exceptions, including John Diefenbaker, the sadly short-tenured Joe Clark and, of course, Stephen Harper.

However, in Trudeau’s mini-rant, the geographical characteristics have no relevance; it’s white that has the bite.

Would it be awkward to point out that the present prime minister, the present “ruler,” is himself … white? As was another who ornamented 24 Sussex Dr. from the late 1960s for more than a full decade (there was a brief intermission). That, of course, was the charismatic Pierre Elliott Trudeau, his father.

As readers have guessed, I’m only glancing at the topic here. That topic being how “whiteness,” or white skin colour, has, in the minds of some activists and anti-racism campaigners, become a highly negative term, a pejorative not to be challenged; whiteness, or being white, has become an implied — or expressly declared — failing. These people cite one skin colour as a determinant of character and worth.

 

Justin has always been divisive, inflammatory, thoughtless, boorish, tactless, insulting, emotionally retarded ...

Should one go on? 

This is nothing new.

Why did everyone tolerate it? Do people enjoy being insulted by an unaccomplished son of a former prime minister whose entire tenure has been plagued by scandal, incompetence and failure? Do people think it is sign of great strength to avoid the real issues of the day and attack a political opponent in such fatuousness?

I guess that self-respect is for the other guy.


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