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He purported to be taking responsibility, but he called the brownface he wore in that shocking Time Magazine photo “makeup.”

No sir.

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Makeup is what people wear to enhance or improve the look of their skin. Makeup is what even I might wear to a wedding this weekend.

Brownface ain’t makeup. Brownface is having a laugh at someone with dark skin.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has confessed to two incidents of such “makeup” wearing — one when he was in high school and sang The Banana Boat song, or Day O, by the great Harry Belafonte; the other of course the ghastly picture of Trudeau, in turban and brownface, that was published late Wednesday by Time Magazine.

In the picture, a dark Trudeau hand is splayed comfortably on the upper chest of whom I presume was a pretty colleague at West Point Grey Academy, the posh private school in Vancouver where Trudeau worked as a teacher.

Photo by Time.com

This picture dates to 2001, when Trudeau was not a kid, but a 29-year-old.

According to Time, the photo was published in the school’s yearbook, The View, and taken at an “Arabian Nights”-themed gala.

Trudeau is the only one in the picture wearing brownface.

The magazine got the picture from a Vancouver businessman who first saw it in July and thought it should be made public.

It seems unlikely to me that Trudeau would have forgotten either the incident or the picture that was taken, especially as over the years, white people wearing blackface came to be recognized as racist and absolutely toxic to politicians.

For instance, some of his staffers, including one who travels with him, are people of colour. One of his principal opponents is NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, a turbaned man of colour who has talked about the discrimination he’s faced.