Im femi oke im a league of the law and here in the stream today brought face control the scenes we will discuss the history of this race practice and how it impacts people of color are there instances a black face in your part of the world chances are yes well what should we do about them tell us via twitter or in our live you tube chat. I just want to let you know this before we get started that todays program will feature of race images that you may find disturbing the latest controversy of a black face involves canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau last week he apologized for instances in his pasta where he ducked into a scheme to portray black and brown people the controversy has reignited conversations about racism and White Privilege this is something that i deeply deeply regret darkening your face. Regardless of the context of the circumstances is always unacceptable because of the racist history of black face i should have understood that then. And i never should have done it. That face isnt just a painful episode of the past it continues to appear in Popular Culture and media around the world but faced how it is in europe include blunt pete in the netherlands and belgium to the survivors have stopped protests from mt racism activists and raise questions over how these traditions impact their respective communities of color so today we want to dive into the rhesus roots of black face and with us to talk about this in Montreal CanadaCharmaine Nelson a professor of art history at Mcgill University shes also a scholar of transatlantic slavery studies in amsterdam jerry a 3 a hes a poet and human rights activist who works with the black pete is Racism Campaign and in new york today shes a radio producer and host of the stoop stories from the black diaspora welcome everyone but it is really good to have you know here hello gerri charmaine at least let me start here on my lap top takes us back to the beginning of the 19th century william h. West a big minstrel do you believe for the gentleman there none of them are black or wearing blackface champagne 2019 was still discovering black face. Pictures photographs and not from way back then not even historical archives people were still doing it if they knew where this tradition came from do you think they would stop. I think many of them would and i think too theres a very unique context in canada where we have suppressed 200 years of transatlantic slavery under 2 empires the french and the british and why thats very very important to us understand its connected to trudeaus the scandal with brown place in blackface is because blackface minstrel c. Comes directly out of transatlantic slavery and it emerges at a moment when slavery is ending so we need to think about what replaces the white ownership of black bodies when slavery dies and mental c. Was a public stage performance that included instrumental music singing dancing and very while an comedy they would sing and make jokes about things like lynching right smoking like tobacco peeling about like potatoes black people and on the stage were mainly white men who were doing cross cross gender am across racial performances so white men pretending to be both black male and females who were enslaved so part of what was so horrific and horrible 12 of them and today is that a minstrel he was about in a style job that slavery had and it was also sad that slavery is over and the grotesqueness to have the mask of course was a part of that and central part of that. So that was a perfect explanation wrapped up so so tightly there thank you for that and i think its necessary because there are people in our community tweeting us that they dont quite understand where it came from and why it is so bad so i want to bring in one voice this is a man he says im a bit confused i suppose if its part of a costume for a theme thing then why is it offensive i mean after such is the way in for others here in the u. S. Dressed up in white face to play the characters in the white chicks movie and then goes on to say so someone can paint their body blue or green or purple but if you match your skin tones for trey the character or costume to be more real then its offensive so be a lot ill give this one to you what would you say back to ayman. Well it just it makes me think about when people are doing blackface and they are in situations where they are most likely the only. There are any other black people in the room right and so the idea of when someone says why is it offensive it has to do for me with this question of like if you were were a white person in a room full of black people would you still be doing blackface. And i dont i dont think i think the answer is no im mean people do blackface because they are trying to be funny as and at some point its just its not humorous so i think that when people say i dont get it you know we can all laugh at that you know i think the sad thing is its basically people that are and spaces where there arent any black people around that are basically poking fun at rat culture and thats a question i think people need to ask when when there are certain why this might be offensive to other people can i add as well and i jump in there lila and add as well that you know theres no quickly and between black. People pretending to be white and wipe people depending pretending who people color who they colonized and slaves and in the case of black people of african descent were talking 400 years of slavery from the 1400s until the 800 so what we have to understand too is race as we know it today as a supposedly biological cattery of human difference did not exist before slavery it was created in and through slavery to justify slavery and when you know a lot of visual artists participated in that project and when they were creating the dire ramas of people skull sizes and shapes and all was kind of nonsense with a biometric an understanding of a body you know the black person was always at the bottom and the white the european was always at the top so we need to understand too that racism about is about power the ability to withhold things from people to to deny people opportunity and to be able to mis rabbet represent people as well we really need to keep that in mind in terms of you know people try to reverse the arguments about. You know your grazing our way or dressing up as us why cant we dress up as you let me let me bring jerry into the conversation here jerry because every single year without fail it was lent of the year people around the world are shocked to see dutch people blacking up with the full big lips and the afro wig let me show you here what that looks like there is a cut to known as wate peat or black pete in the netherlands culture as you approach christmas time he is to help with the santa cause thats how i would describe it but joe you tell us how you would describe this image that you see and its culturally acceptable and its part of a tradition that you are trying to fight and get rid off tell us about but pete where oh where should i. I would say that when we look at the tradition we had the office of nicholas. It was hundreds of years you know which was played by whites and then doing something that explains the d. Whites in the class who were portrayed was elderly white man and all of a sudden theyre raised by steamboat and right that white holes through the race of course of the midlands and as a result just what pete and pete visas to schools hospitals and other places what we have seen is that its going up. Leave the impression that black people are lazy that black people are not equal and most shocking that it only shows that we havent really learned much from a lot of sleep sleep history and colonial history and its kind of like dressed up but they said there are many black faces and other people out in a blend to it and when we started our campaign we didnt had a lot of people and we didnt had a lot of support support from the a lot of people but recently we have seen more white people coming to the conclusion that this is actually very racist and the old daddy continues to want to get rid of racism so jerry im reminded ive been here for a long time at the stream and so im pulling up an episode from 2012 and which a member of your organization was on the show we talked about blackface for the holidays and this is the latest update to that so fast forward i was 2012 this is 2019 this from the guardian on what the updated version of words if he is going to look like he is sooty now so we asked our community what they think about that update to his origin story this is what one percent said jeremiah says i am still offended use dark and faces instead white people parading and sooty faces darkened faces or any other adjectives with them come up with still boils down to whites using. Identity as their amusement so jerry whats your take on the sooty the update to it and trying to. Remedy some of what people see as reeses im can i show the to the change i can buy when i go before an office and this is the before my laptop everybody so this is black pete this is the updated version is a little bit not not very that there gerri are you happy now. The thing is that when. I was part of this company and when we started it i didnt start this company because i was bored i didnt start it because i was looking for when you started because there was that face which is very degrading to black people and i felt like we need to do something about it so my whole. Goal is to get rid of the black face but so that the celebration can become a sort of gratian for everyone also making that changes even though we seem small and i do think that a lot of children growing up with 2 other people stop pointing the finger like people are saying you up because now they are seeing the parents can be peeved they see the people behind that it is more playful so hes about people not going to sort of bridge not essential black people but at the same time im not to feel people how to celebrate instead of bracing for im a poet trying to be feet minded as i can what are the same time i would not stand by when i saw this pencil what is black people white people in the human race to say to that very much that this story is really important in the truth oks because there is points to about the children and what children are taught and what i at what age when we think about white children learning practice racism trudeau was a teacher he was 29 years old he should have been the one in the school making sure that his students didnt come to that party black face as opposed to being the one to show up in the black face and were talking about a 21st century occurrence that was 2001 and we have to remember here too this is a background of people like forget you know growing up in canada maybe the you know people in europe etc dont know this but we are inundated with american t. V. So you know i grew up watching n. B. C. A. B. C. You know fox when it came into being c. B. S. So as well as a canadian t. V. Show the channel story t. V. Channels so why im saying this growing up you know being born in the 70s growing up the seventys there was a moment when i would turn on the t. V. See the big blockbuster but buster splashy hollywood movies with actresses like julie garland and blackface but then by the eightys late seventys you know there was a mainstream consensus that we didnt want to see that anymore in t. V. What. Sense what do you think happened because not having conversation because it is unacceptable so what happened what what what changed our minds i think part of it is with it it went underground so so a lot of these cases were white people coming out post censorship post mainstream censorship is white people in white only situations i think mention this a little bit right when theres not black people around theres not people of color around and if theyre honest with themselves some of them would admit i wouldnt have done this if my black friend had been there on my black hole worker excedrin so part of it is we need to think about you know in a country like canada that builds itself on multiculturalism and racial Diversity Inclusion are we actually living together in canada are we actually building intimate friendships across rate and ethnicity are we actually you know eating lunch and going to the barbecue with you know the new workmate who you know is of a different race or ethnicity because a lot of the instances that are being you know talked about now like there was a white female who was a a law student in alberta in 1070 saying theyre all law faculty showed up in blackface and it was a certain gathering and what was interesting to me is she said nobody complained nobody minded everybody liked it but my 1st thought was hello how many black students were at your law school in 1070 in alberta probably not probably not black professors either and probably the black people who are in the you know the institutional system im sorry to say but canada is a racist country and they were probably people who didnt have the positions or the authority to think that they could point out that they were deeply offended by that party which they saw v. So a lot. Sparky Everyone Wants to Say Something im going to jump in there because i want to bring something in from our community we got so many comments from them and its picking up on something that you mentioned earlier charmaine about people thinking that this was exploited then it was exploited from the u. S. From hollywood and so that is how it infiltrated but we have a comment from someone and put up a tweet that she sent and she talks about europe and so because this was imported from the us people think we dont have the same issues as the u. S. Does and so therefore we dont have the same problems she writes this is how france chose to represent the 1794 abolition of slavery on the walls of its National Assembly it tells you all that you need to know about the countrys attitude towards black based on she sent us a comment elaborating on this have a listen to what she said so one of the problems that we have it is to constantly suspicion was blackface innocent activity in Central America forgetting the fact is how youre talking here about the medieval chronicle the truly of the races fact is of disguising oneself as a black or more in order to mock belittle the other people will example since 1901 if its going to french National Assembly so were civil to 94. 00 sleazily the work by french artist overdue was it is a full blown black face yet at least an attempt to have it display some of the National Assembly feel as the majority of french refused to see any harm in our work and denounce an attack instead of expression it of minorities in a sort of frenchness but american Political Correctness so jerry she told us that people deny its roots because they think well it doesnt relate to our history this is just enjoyment this is just fun. You mean theyre white people or black i mean if she met white people of europe. I think that what we have seen is that especially in the netherlands we have to remember that most dutch people grew up with what the fundamental research about it but says the history of colonialism miss levy is not being addressed enough the schools a lot of people grew up thinking this is a friendly list but this and they have. Some people have no idea by the history behind it and i think also that you have to speed up racist people who dont hit with a goose people or not but you have another ignorant people when it would be trying to do in the midlands is beside this thing is to educate the people who is the government wont do with this is the school refused to do with the just Common People no have to step to the plate to teach one another so we want to have to think again can i just jump in also because i think that there were many made because it isnt done say thank you for some time and i thought when i started my lad. Like just personally its also extremely exhausting jerry you know what i mean to have to try to constantly educate people about why this is offensive its just its really really draining and i think thats a conversation weve been having a lot amongst people within the diaspora that some people that say well one way to not be drained about this is just to laugh it off i have black friends that have seen black face and the gollywog dolls and things that are very racially offensive and tell me i dont want that that sort of thing bother me you know once i let it bother me and i internalize that thats when i think that theyve won and so i think like for me personally and for a lot of folks ive been talking to d d. I expect more of like a cancer culture towards this type of behavior where someone can dress in black face and be completely canceled from either being reelected and are being you know given certain Job Opportunities etc whereas before it used to be a time where well lets talk this out lets educate people and lets try to explain to them so im you know i think people are really bad and i do like to say i dont care i think. I do understand united think we are really tired over spleen and because i do think that when it comes to do community it wasnt because winslet were the human race i think the way to enslave them with the human eyes because they become no longer people but we started things to people but i was same time i do think that. I have seen it up a spirit for people who really change in. Based on having those conversations but i do agree that is this lost them and we shouldnt be the one to do it i guess if you get it and i guess i know its also if i want to do something very quickly with you im going to call this the speed round this is c t v and this is the apology Justin Trudeau made and underneath it are some questions from people who clearly dont understand the history of plot say so maybe they do and it doesnt really impact them so this is a speed round for you or alexandra says it was 18 years ago it was a lack of judgment really comment on that lack of judgment it wasnt really his fault. My comment is basically you know he can easily get canceled for his actions like theres theres not much empathy left for people that do these things and those ugly try to hide them when an even better if he had actually come out and said i this is something that i did and you know this is how i feel about it that i speed round moving on smita christian as it was in 2001 when no one thought it was an issue and it wasnt a crying child may you handle that one ok listen i got a statement for everybody i know you dont you will understand this but can back in canada a very different situation he might not get cancelled and part of that is because canadians the average way