As everyone knows by now, VA Gov. Ralph Northam found himself in a sticky wicket on Friday, when old photos of him in blackface surfaced. They came from 1984, when Northam was a student at East Virginia Medical School.
At first the guv was oh-so-sorry and groveled before Virginia voters, begging for forgiveness:
“Earlier today, a website published a photograph of me from my 1984 medical school yearbook in a costume that is clearly racist and offensive.”
“I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now.”
Everyone wondered: is Ralph Northam going to resign?
https://twitter.com/hodgetwins/status/1091488371904458752?s=11
Well, that was Friday. On Saturday, Northam held a bizarre press conference to explain that it wasn’t him in that blackface/KKK photo. Never mind that the yearbook page with the picture clearly reads “Ralph Shearer Northam” — someone mistakenly put it on his page. Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket!
Who ya gonna believe? Northam or your lying eyes?
But then Northam admitted that he put on blackface once, as a participant in a 1984 talent show, when he did a Michael Jackson moonwalk imitation. But the governor, who remembered that he absolutely did not pose in that infamous photo, stumbled on Jackson’s name. He turned to his wife:
“I dressed up in a … what’s his name, the singer? Michael Jackson. Excuse me. That’s why I have Pam with me.”
He couldn’t recall the name of the most prominent pop star of the 1980’s but absolutely knew that wasn’t him on his yearbook page. Right. And bears don’t . . . well, you know.
Credit: Brand X Studio.
But at least he didn’t go all blackface for his performance, so there’s that:
“I used just a little bit of shoe polish to put on my cheeks and the reason I used a very little bit because – I don’t know if anyone’s ever tried that – you cannot get shoe polish off.”
Besides, Northam claimed, back in ’84 doing a little blackface was pretty “commonplace” at the time.
I can tell you that where I live in the Midwest, the practice certainly was not commonplace. But maybe it was at Northam’s East Virginia Medical School:
Another photo in the 1984 EVMS yearbook pictures a man who appears to be in blackface and dressed as a woman with the caption: "who ever thought Diana Ross would make it to Medical School!" https://t.co/ahpjoZhShu pic.twitter.com/0IVMHSthi1
— The Virginian-Pilot (@virginianpilot) February 2, 2019
Maybe Northam has never heard the advice: when you’re in a hole, stop digging!
Credit: tenor.com.
Democrats are going into panic mode. Worried that Northam may be the kiss of death to their Presidential candidacies, Sens. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren called for Northam to step down. So did Nancy Pelosi, who wouldn’t talk about Northam’s support for late-term abortion. But she sure was appalled at the blackface:
The photo is racist and contrary to fundamental American values. I join my colleagues in Virginia calling on Governor Northam to do the right thing so that the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia can heal and move forward.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) February 2, 2019
And finally, VA Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax — who’s black — smelled blood in the water. On Saturday afternoon he threw Ralph Northam under the bus:
“While his career has been marked by service to children, soldiers, and constituents, I cannot condone the actions from his past that, at the very least, suggest suggest a comfort with Virginia’s darker history of white supremacy, racial stereotyping, and intimidation. . .”
I hope Ralph Northam doesn’t cave to the political whims of his party. And you know why? Because they own this, and this is delicious Schadenfreude for the GOP. Democrats crusade on identity politics, eager to trash conservatives as racist bigots, whose president would love nothing more than to usher in an era of white supremacy.
Moreover, to be a perceived racist is a bigger affront to Democrats than the murder of unborn children. And, in their eyes, Ralph Northam’s 35 year old escapade in blackface is more horrendous than his support for late-term abortion and even infanticide.
That is sickness. And I hope Northam stays in office as a reminder of how extremely radical the Democratic Party has become.
Featured photo: cropped from Ben Watts @ flickr.com. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
GWB says: old photos of him in blackface
Well, really we don’t know if it’s him in the blackface or in the hood.
a costume that is clearly racist and offensive
Well, this is where I disagree. Entirely. True “blackface” – used to perform sometimes racist tropes in old vaudeville – certainly could be racist. But blacking your face (or dressing as a klansman) as a costume for a party of some kind is just… blacking your face for a costume party. And hamming it up with the klansman costume is part of the silliness. Remember Blazing Saddles? If he did a chorus of Mammy, you might call that racist. If he in any way implied “this is what all blacks do” or “this is how all blacks should be treated” then it’s racist.
in ’84 doing a little blackface was pretty “commonplace” at the time.
It wasn’t viewed as racist in most places – unless of course you did something racist with it.
On Saturday afternoon he threw Ralph Northam under the bus
Oh nice.
Democrats crusade on identity politics
And that’s the only reason I care. Rules For Radicals: Make them own their own rules!
RCPete says: Somebody did some digging and found this: https://gab.com/Guild/posts/47775964
Unless there were multiple pairs of those pants and that hair style around campus, he was the doofus in blackface.
Pretty amazing effort to distract from baby killing though.
Scott says: “Moreover, to be a perceived racist is a bigger affront to Democrats than the murder of unborn children. ” Good choice of words there Kim, because it truly is the PERCEPTION of being a racist that bothers them, they have no problem at all with actually BEING a racist, in fact, it’s encouraged, just ask LBJ, Robert Byrd, etc.
GWB says: And now another story….
https://twitter.com/NBC12/status/1092240794562584576
(h/t to Twitchy)
Paul says: Ralph’s got his excuse as to why it couldn’t be him in that picture
[…] overturned, are in panic and are moving the battle-lines forward to the position of Ralph Northam, far from a natural oracle of moral opinion this past […]
[…] This was the logical end of the nonsensical Roe v. Wade decision that childbirth is exclusively a matter of a woman’s control over her body: it decided correctly that the state does not have the power and should not seek the power to inflict childbirth on a woman who does not want to have a child. But it ignored the real question of when the unborn attain to the rights of a person. That is why the decision is vulnerable and the Democrats, in cold terror that it could be overturned, are in panic and are moving the battle-lines forward to the position of Ralph Northam, far from a natural oracle of moral opinion this past week. […]
[…] This was the logical end of the nonsensical Roe v. Wade decision that childbirth is exclusively a matter of a woman’s control over her body: it decided correctly that the state does not have the power and should not seek the power to inflict childbirth on a woman who does not want to have a child. But it ignored the real question of when the unborn attain to the rights of a person. That is why the decision is vulnerable and the Democrats, in cold terror that it could be overturned, are in panic and are moving the battle-lines forward to the position of Ralph Northam, far from a natural oracle of moral opinion this past week. […]
[…] This was the logical end of the nonsensical Roe v. Wade decision that childbirth is exclusively a matter of a woman’s control over her body: it decided correctly that the state does not have the power and should not seek the power to inflict childbirth on a woman who does not want to have a child. But it ignored the real question of when the unborn attain to the rights of a person. That is why the decision is vulnerable and the Democrats, in cold terror that it could be overturned, are in panic and are moving the battle-lines forward to the position of Ralph Northam, far from a natural oracle of moral opinion this past week. […]
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