It's 2019, yet the portrayal of Arabs still holds bundles of stereotypes — from the clothes we wear to the way we speak. This oftentimes includes the depiction of Arabs as dark-skinned individuals who ride camels, live in the sandy desert, and wear either abayas or thobes. When asked to mark our race, they expect us to tick "brown" because they believe our skin color (though not all Arabs are dark, and not all dark individuals are Arab) defines our race.
One politician in Canada, a land known for its politeness, turned out to be guilty of reinforcing the racist rhetoric 18 years ago. Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister, appeared in brownface to a party titled "Arabian Nights" that took place at the private school he was teaching at in 2001. This week, TIME obtained a photograph of the incident, shared it with the public, and ultimately sparked quite the uproar on social media.
Trudeau's 29-year-old self wore a turban, robe, and painted his face, neck, and hands to appear 10 shades darker.
The photograph is available in The View yearbook (2000-2001) of West Point Grey Academy, a private day school in Vancouver where Trudeau had been teaching at the time. Following TIME's publication, Trudeau apologized, saying he "shouldn't have done that." He acknowledged that it was a racist decision and that he should have known better.
"I didn't consider it racist at the time, but now we know better," he said.
The politician also said that he went to the "Arabian Nights"-themed gala dressed as Aladdin. Disney couldn't even get the film made without reinforcing stereotypes. It actually failed to get Arab culture right twice.
When asked about whether this had happened on other occasions, Trudeau admitted to having worn blackface makeup to perform a Jamaican folk song when he was a high-school student. A photo of it has since been shared on Twitter.
"I deeply regret that I did that," the PM, who is competing for reelection on Oct. 21, said.
Whether we're talking about blackface, brownface, yellowface ... putting on makeup to portray another community's skin-tone is blatant racism.
Blackface is "a form of theatrical make-up used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a caricature of a black person."
Similarly, brownface is putting on makeup to represent a "brown person" which problematically racializes one's skin tone. It has also been used to categorize people (and treat them as one cluster) from different countries including the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africans.
"What is this obsession white people have with putting on makeup to change their skin color?" one Twitter user wrote in the aftermath of the Trudeau photo.
While there has been increasing awareness on the matter, blackface and stereotypical portrayals of darker-skinned people continue to plague mass media and pop culture until this very day.
Blackface has appeared on Arab screens on multiple occasions over the years, such as in Egyptian comedy series Azmi we Ashgan and Kuwaiti comedy series Block Ghashmara, both of which were released during Ramadan 2018. We (unfortunately) weren't void of such portrayals this Ramadan either. In several episodes of the satirical Shaklabaz program, Egyptian actress Shimaa Seif appeared with her skin painted significantly darker and seemed to mimic the Sudanese accent. The episode was widely deemed offensive to the people of Sudan, particularly Sudanese women, and many social media users called out the actress for the derogatory portrayal.
The problem lies in the fact that while non-blacks flaunt blackface in films, magazine covers, and Halloween costumes, darker-skinned individuals continue to face discrimination in many parts of the world, including Arab countries.