Western Standard - November 04, 2021


Liberal hypocrisy on show in Toronto blackface scandal


Episode Stats


Length

2 minutes

Words per minute

161.64185

Word count

445

Sentence count

21

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A teacher at a Toronto school dressed up in blackface for Halloween has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. A petition has been started calling for the TDSB to do more to combat racism in schools and schools across the city.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello, I'm Melanie Rizdin with the Western Standard.
00:00:03.060 Toronto Liberal MP Arif Varani has called out a teacher in his riding for donning blackface for Halloween at Parkdale Collegiate.
00:00:10.480 But when his party leader and our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wore blackface repeatedly, Varani stayed silent.
00:00:17.460 The wearing of blackface by a teacher at Parkdale Collegiate is simply unacceptable, tweeted Varani.
00:00:23.540 We need a prompt investigation by Toronto District School Board, and our community needs to see prompt accountability.
00:00:31.160 Trudeau has come under fire several times for his blackface appearances in the past.
00:00:36.700 Even as photos of Trudeau's blackface incidents surfaced and circulated,
00:00:41.560 Liberal MP Varani spoke to the CBC while campaigning in September 2019 in support of Trudeau.
00:00:47.900 I have confidence in my leader, Varani said, pointing to the Liberals' national anti-racism strategy as an example.
00:00:56.100 That, to me, is a man that I want to continue to support.
00:00:59.800 That is why I have confidence in him, because I know that he is a person that actually believes what he is talking about.
00:01:06.400 Now, Varani is taking aim at Parkdale Collegiate Institute teacher Gorian Serlin
00:01:12.120 for arriving at school on Friday in blackface as part of his Halloween costume.
00:01:16.440 Parents were notified by the school's principal, Julie Ardell, Saturday evening about the incident.
00:01:23.100 Quote,
00:01:23.640 As you know, many staff and students were dressed up for Halloween,
00:01:27.560 but late in the morning a number of students alerted the vice principal that a white staff member was in blackface,
00:01:33.440 she wrote, as reported by the Toronto Star.
00:01:36.640 Caricatures of people's race or culture are not appropriate and are offensive and hurtful. 0.96
00:01:42.040 Ardell has acknowledged the teacher could face serious consequences for the costume,
00:01:47.400 and many members of the community told the Star they didn't feel the administration acted quick enough to remove Serlin.
00:01:53.620 A photo of Serlin seen in blackface paint was shared on Twitter by the Toronto Star.
00:01:58.500 A petition to the Toronto District School Board calling for it to do more on the racism issue
00:02:03.920 was started by Kathy Gatlin, a parent of one of the students at Parkdale Collegiate.
00:02:09.560 Quote,
00:02:09.980 We are writing to you as concerned parents and neighbours about the serious incident of anti-black racism that took place in your school,
00:02:17.960 the petition reads.
00:02:19.320 As of Wednesday morning, there were 1,916 signatures on the petition,
00:02:24.080 which includes details of the incident and states the current policy and protocols for hate and racial discrimination are not enough.
00:02:32.680 According to a statement the TDSB provided to the Western Standard,
00:02:37.280 Serlin has been put on home assignment until a full investigation into the incident is completed.
00:02:42.700 For the Western Standard, I'm Melanie Rizdin.