Trudeau slips up
PM EVIDENTLY WILLING TO USE RACIAL STEREOTYPES TO HIS ADVANTAGE
The prime minister was caught off guard. To be fair, it’s hard to be on guard when drooled over by foreign publicists pretending to be journalists. Justin Trudeau’s fanboys at Rolling Stone published a cover profile of their hero, in which he said this about his 2012 boxing match with Senator Patrick Brazeau:
“I wanted someone who would be a good foil, and we stumbled upon the scrappy tough- guy senator from an Indigenous community,” Trudeau said. “He fit the bill, and it was a very nice counterpoint. I saw it as the right kind of narrative, the right story to tell.”
Trudeau’s remarks were not truly incendiary, but they did nicely illustrate that he was willing to employ negative views about Indigenous people to advance his interests. Thus the subsequent Indigenous indignation that his comments incited was not unfounded.
After all, what “counterpoint” and “narrative” did Brazeau provide in Trudeau’s eyes?
It’s unlikely that Trudeau had foremost in mind the image of a fabulously rich white man pummelling an Indian. It i s remarkable though that the progressive press has generally overlooked that Trudeau’s ascent from junior celebrity to senior celebrity was achieved by beating an Indigenous man into submission for the amusement of well- heeled benefactors at a charity event.
Yet in choosing Brazeau, a native Canadian who played into unfavourable stereotypes about Indigenous men ( it was reported early on that he was behind on child support payments for his four children by two differ- ent mothers), Trudeau confessed that he was indeed choosing a “foil.” The pampered son of privilege would demonstrate his toughness against a streetwise ruffian in the ring.
That he thought an Indigenous man was ideal for that “narrative” does undermine his sincerity when he wears his Haida on his sleeve or, to be exact, tattooed on his arm.
The boxing context must be taken into account. The reality of boxing — beating another man senseless — has always been accompanied by a lot of pretending. That why some of the greatest writers, not infrequently self- styled progressive voices, would celebrate the “sweet science” despite its brutality. And race has never been far from the ethos of the prizefight, even when both boxers are black.
Few widely- admired public figures have ever dealt in as vicious racial stereotypes as did the late Muhammad Ali against his black opponents Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and George Foreman. They were ugly, stupid and violent. The lighter- skinned Ali was, by his own accounts, pretty, clever and graceful. Ali got a pass because of his worthy civil rights activism, and because, well, it was boxing, and a little racism gets the crowd’s blood pumping.
Is that the “narrative” that Trudeau had in mind back in 2012? From his comments to Rolling Stone, it would appear so. Not that Trudeau looked forward to pummelling Brazeau because he was Indigenous, but because such a “foil” would add to the fever about the match, in the same way that calling Frazier a “gorilla” worked for Ali.
When pressed earlier this week, Trudeau declined to explain what “narrative” he was alluding to, but simply expressed his “regret” that such comments were not in the “spirit of reconciliation.”
Is there any other significance to this story, aside from the fact that Trudeau held some patronizing attitudes toward Indigenous peoples?
Yes. Combined with the Indigenous indignation that recently greeted Gov. Gen. David Johnston’s comments about Canada’s Indigenous peoples coming from Asia thousands of years ago, it demonstrates that Indigenous matters can be explosive even for those who are most passionately committed to the agenda. If Trudeau and Johnston, despite their ostentatious support, can be denounced so harshly, it will discourage other public figures from embracing the file. Better to steer clear rather than get burned.
All that and more will be played out in the ongoing difficulties of the troubled inquiry into the murdered and missing Indigenous women. That story has more than a few characters that make Brazeau’s brushes with the law minor by comparison. How will such stories be told, or commented upon, without falling into the same troubling “narrative” that animated Trudeau’s comments?
Finally, the Rolling Stone minor controversy might have the salutary effect of making the prime minister a little more wary when foreign adulators come on pilgrimage to worship at his feet, his socks, or his tattooed arm.