Rant #2,450: Black and White

Yes, I overslept once again.

Maybe not as bad as the other day(s), but bad enough.

I have never used an alarm clock to get up in my entire life--my inner body clock has done the trick for decades--but maybe the time has come for me to use such a clock to get me going.

Lately, with the arrival of the cooler weather, I am having lots of trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

My allergies are certainly not helping things, as they have been pretty much haywire this year, and even more so right now.

But I try to laugh about it, laugh it off, laugh at myself for not being able to do the things that I was able to do even five years ago without some pushback from my own body.

But I have found that as a world, as a society, we have generally forgotten how to laugh at ourselves, laugh at our foibles that come from being human beings.

And when we are actually apologizing for things that we did decades after the fact, I really have to question why we are atoning for our supposed "sins" so many years after the fact.

Here is the perfect example of that type of what I consider as idiotic behavior, being used literally, in this case, to save face.

Reports are that way back in 2001, Justin Trudeau, today Canada's prime minister, wore brown face makeup to a party at the private school where he was teaching.

The party was Arabian Nights-themed, and Trudeau, then just the 29 year old son of his dad, the country's former prime minister who was a mainstay of the tabloids during his reign for his sexual proclivities, was captured in a photo wearing brown face to salute the character Aladdin.

The photo was in the school's yearbook, and was obtained by Time Magazine by someone who was not at the party, discovered the photo recently, and put it on himself to make it news, because he felt it must be revealed what an absolutely heinous act the younger Trudeau did some 18 years ago, when no one thought anything bad about brown face, black face, white face, or even purple face.

Now, in 2019, of course, the prime minister has gone into 100 percent complete damage control. He said, "I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better and I didn't. I am sorry."

When asked if the photo was racist, Trudeau declared, "Yes, it was. I didn't consider it racist at the time, but now, we know better."

Do we really? I take issue with that.

Black face, brown face, white face has been around for generations, and it is only in the past few years--when people get all upset and hot and bothered over everything, and I do mean everything--when brown face and black face have been derided as being racist.

Of course, I have heard absolutely nothing about white face, which, if the others are so horrid, well, then white face has to be in the same category.

These "faces" were used for generations in things like minstrel shows, where white performers dressed up in black face to emulate black citizens, with all the stereotypes applied.

I never heard one iota of anger about black face until the past few years, and yes, it probably was racist, but mixed in with some reverence too. It was perhaps bad, but it wasn't all bad.

But today, we look at the practice as highly racist, and perhaps that is correct.

However, to dump on someone because they did it in an era where this was not looked down upon is, well, racist in itself.

And I seriously doubt that Trudeau was making a racist statement about those of Arab descent by wearing brown face.

And I don't think that he should be raked over the coals for applying such makeup when it was done in an era where there was not a peep from anyone about it.

Obviously, someone has it out for Trudeau, so this came up 18 years after the fact.

It should not besmirch Trudeau at all, and no apology from him was needed as far as I am concerned, although in today's world, we seem to apologize for everything.

Let me see ... back in 1965, I portrayed a farmer in a school play at P.S. 30, Rochdale Village, Queens, actually I played the Farmer in the Dell. I wore dungarees, a plaid shirt, a straw hat, and I had the audacity to wear some scruffy makeup to make me look like I had worked in the fields all day.

It was all over my face, I admit it.

I apologize to all the farmers in the world, a group I was clearly honoring by my costume ... I really do.

"I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better and I didn't. I am sorry. ... Yes, my costume was anti-farmer. I didn't consider it anti-farmer at the time, but now, we know better."

Again, I ask, do we really?