Different times, different standards

It is not fair to apply the standards and norms of today to the actions of yesterday. Blackface years ago was OK. Today it is not, and for good reason.

I'm 64. I defy anyone my age who grew up in St. John’s to say they haven’t said or at the very least overheard and then condemned others for saying, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a N-word by the toe...” Shocking now, of course, but yes we said those things and at the same time cheered on Martin Luther King Jr.

We played innocent games of cowboys and Indians, and today the only people we can call Indians are from India (because that is the only place they come from).

Were we racist? No, we weren’t. Neither was Trudeau racist for wearing blackface at a time when such an action was no considered degrading to people of that colour.

Snc-lavalin is the reason I’m not voting for him.

I’m voting for the long-suffering NDP again. For the information of the (real) ignorant racists out there, my man Singh in a Sikh, not a Muslim. Not that him being Muslim would have turned me from the New Democrats either.

You see, I am the son of an immigrant and a proud Newfoundlander. My father was a proud Newfoundlander to the end, too. Yes, we are (were in his case) both white and speak English, but no more or less a Newfoundlander or Canadian than Shaun Majumder.

We immigrants make the Canadian world go around.

Guess what: unless you are indigenous to this continent, then you are all descended from immigrants too!

Bob Hyslop Clarenville