Shared: Youth, Comeliness, Ignorance

"I apologize without reservation for the comments made a long time ago, as a teenager, but that is no excuse."
"They [the offensive comments tweeted back in ancient history] do not reflect my views, who I am as a person, or my deep respect for all communities in our country."
Ala Buzreba, Liberal party candidate, Calgary-Nose Hill

Ala Buzreba, the Liberal party candidate in Calgary-Nose Hill, apologized for offensive messages on her Twitter account as a teen and later said it was best for the riding that she step away from the race. (liberal.ca) 

Ah dear, youthful exuberance, the conviction that one has the right and self-obligation to state what to oneself is self-evident. Ms. Buzreba, all of 21 years old at the present time was set to run in her riding against Michelle Rempel, a junior cabinet minister in the Conservative-led government. She has placed the blame for her rudely incendiary, intolerant remarks expressed on her Twitter platform on "youthful ignorance".

Deep-seated prejudices are fine when one is in their teens, say, up to age nineteen. But reaching the grand old age of 20, and then leap-frogging successfully into 21 whole years of age, requires a semblance of cautionary introspection leading to a more careful analysis of what one says impacting on how one is perceived. Most particularly when one has engaged politically. In a party that portrays itself as having open arms for all Canadian demographics.

Four years earlier Ms. Buzreba had evidently posted a number of tweets that have come back to haunt her. And of course the culprit identified on this occasion would likely be some underhanded Conservative functionary eager to exploit her youthful naivete, the bounder. One tweet has her advising a defender of Israel: "Your mother should have used that coat hanger".

Another in which she states casually that just having had herself professionally groomed, her hair cut in some salon, she looks "like a flipping lesbian". Cute! The tweets, though, asserts Ms. Buzreba, "reflect a much younger person". Much younger than 21, say about five, when precocious little kids who even then should have an ingrained sensibility toward others, repeat what they've heard.

But the 'much younger' Ala Buzreba, at age 18-19, who is now discrediting the more mature, tolerant and studiedly-politically-conscious individual she has become, is not that far removed from the adult whose consciousness just suddenly with the revelation that what has once been committed to the public airways can be recalled has become expediently contrite.

The younger she who took affront at someone she took to having expressed a racist comment in a case of a personal ox  being gored, advises another tweeter to "go blow your brains out you waste of sperm." Creatively offensive, and oh so emotionally satisfying. She excused herself by adding the process has taught her some critical lessons about social media.

It does have a tendency to haunt one throughout life. What has been 'said', posted and distributed cannot be recalled. Safe to say, it will be recalled, in the alternate sense of the word. And then comes the accounting. Life's commitments and their consequences.

She has, however, apologized. And Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is reported to have claimed to be pleased with the apology. Justin Trudeau being Justin Trudeau. Evidently, however, someone cleverer than he within his election team second-guessed the impact of Ms. Buzreba as Liberal candidate; her background credentials have failed to impress.

Resulting in a later statement that: "The discussion shouldn't be focused on me and my tweets, but rather it should be about what's best for Canadians. This election is about bringing real change to Ottawa and I firmly believe that Justin Trudeau and the Liberal team are best placed to do just that", she stated with all the conviction her mature self could muster.

As for the Liberal leader, he is all-forgiving. "When someone makes a mistake it is important that they own up to it and they apologize. Ala has unreservedly apologized for her comments. I think it is important to point out that she was a teenager and we all make mistakes, but I'm glad to see she has unreservedly apologized", he stated.

What more could be expected from someone himself arrested in adolescence's state of blurting what comes to mind; an unfortunate tendency when the mind remains a tabula rasa.