EDMONTON—Many young voters of colour breathed a sigh of disappointment Thursday as images and a video of federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau wearing brownface makeup circulated in Canadian and international media.

Aadil Fazal, a first-year engineering student at the University of Alberta, had been scrolling through the internet when he saw the images.

“Initially, before I knew how old he was, I wasn’t too concerned with it,” Fazal said of the Arabian Nights photo first revealed by Time magazine on Wednesday. The 2001 photo from a Vancouver private school where Trudeau was a teacher showed the future prime minister grinning widely at an “Arabian Nights”-themed party while wearing a decorative turban and dark makeup that covered his face and hands entirely.

“But when I found out he was almost 30 when he did that, I feel like he should have known a little better than to dress up in brownface,” Fazal said.

Fazal said the photos have left him conflicted, admitting he’s undecided about who to vote for in the federal election next month.

Many young voters of colour breathed a sigh of disappointment Thursday, as images and a video of Liberal party Leader Justin Trudeau wearing brownface makeup circulated in Canadian and international media.

Aliya Lakha, a fifth-year student at University of Alberta, said she was surprised to see the images of Trudeau. “I was not expecting it,” Lakha said. “(It) doesn’t really seem like something he would do.”

But Lakha said she respects the fact that Trudeau apologized Wednesday night, and that she’s aware of problematic actions of political candidates in other parties, some of whom have been accused of being racist or homophobic. Her vote, she added, will remain with the Liberals.

The Liberal party, and more specifically the image of Trudeau, rests heavily on its progressive approach to a myriad of issues, including immigration and multiculturalism.

Chaldeans Mensah, a political science professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton, said Trudeau’s identity has now been hugely tarnished.

Mensah said he reacted with “complete and utter disappointment” when he first saw the photos.

“What is surprising to me, is that he is the son of (former prime minister) Pierre Trudeau, who really helped develop the idea of multiculturalism in Canada,” he said. “Coming from that background, the lack of sensitivity at that time is really jarring.”

For Shama Rangwala, a lecturer at the University of Alberta, what’s concerning about Trudeau’s participation in brownface is that his actions perpetuate the problematic idea of Orientalism, which has been long-discussed in academic circles.

Orientalism, Rangwala said, is “a fantasy of the East” that has been used as a vehicle and justification for violence and colonialism.

“There’s this fantasy that brown people are ‘over there,’ that brown people are not in society where you are,” Rangwala said. “It’s important to talk about what it means to hold positions of power when your analysis of society is exclusionary.”

Bashir Mohamed, a University of Alberta student and writer, said it’s important to also realize that Trudeau’s images of wearing brownface and blackface are not isolated incidents, and are a symptom of a racist history that is deeply-rooted in Canada’s past. Calixa Lavallée, the man who composed “O Canada,” was a minstrel performer, Mohamed said, dressing up in blackface and engaging in comic skits that often caricatured Blacks as dim-witted.

“Blackface is as Canadian as ‘O Canada,’” Mohamed said, and added while people will choose to focus on how the images reflect on Trudeau’s character, it’s important to understand that racism is an ongoing issue in Canadian society.

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“We live in a society that’s very unequal and has a lot of systemic problems,” he said. “The conversation should be focused on our country and why this problem persists.”

Mensah said this incident also reflects how issues affecting racialized communities in Canada can sometimes be used to score votes and for political gain, and how Trudeau’s past images have unmasked some of that charade.

“This issue points out the problem of political parties using the issue of race and the issue of identity for political benefit,” Mensah said. “This is one of the issues that should really call for a non-partisan approach. It’s a social issue, but over the years, it has been used for partisan gain.”

But Rangwala said while Trudeau’s actions may have been problematic, the Liberal party continues to be a party with pro-immigration policies, compared to the Conservative party, which she criticized as “anti-immigrant and Islamophobic,” and people should vote with “harm reduction” in mind.

“We have to vote for the person in our riding and hold the leaders accountable once they’re in office,” Rangwala said.

She added she hopes these incidents will act as a reckoning that opens the door for genuinely progressive people in politics, not those who tout a fake version of it. “People should not fall for this kind of fake progressiveness,” Rangwala said.

Zain Velji, a campaign strategist and former campaign manager for Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, said how Trudeau handles his response to the developing story over the next 24 to 36 hours will be crucial.

“I don’t feel like this series of videos and pictures define him, I feel like his actions in government certainly do,” said Velji.

“But at the same time ... I was upset, I was hurt, I was kind of angry, knowing that this is an individual who’s leading our country and has committed such time and energy and political capital to the issues of diversity, multiculturalism, pluralism in this country.”

“It’s a weird cocktail of feelings and emotions,” he said.

With files from Kieran Leavitt

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