Full page from the 1979 yearbook, for those curious about which frat, etc. pic.twitter.com/awgpAXbLdI
— Colin Campbell (@RaleighReporter) February 6, 2019
Like I said, I am glad people are shocked that there was blackface going on in the 80’s, but being outraged about blackface in the eighties or not having done it yourself isn’t a get out of jail free card for all the racist shit our government and society does in our name every single god damned day. Until white people are willing to admit that we are a very racist society and are willing to actively give up our privilege, all the outrage about blackface doesn’t mean jack shit. That means supporting affirmative action, paying higher taxes, investing in minority communities, stop having fucking hissy fits about the inclusion of minorities in movies, stop calling the fucking cops on black people for just living, stop lying about crime rates and talking about black on black crime, wanking about destroying history when we tear down confederate statues, stop supporting racist police because it makes you feel good to have a “I support blue” sticker on your car, stop saying shit like “all live matters, stop holding minorities to a different standard, and stop sneaking into the voting booth and pulling the lever for the Klan Trump and scumbags like him. And thousands of other things we do every single damned day and don’t even know it. You can even start slow- the next time you hear someone say or do something racist- call them on it.
*** Update ***
I have taken the rare step of shutting down the comments on this post. It was accomplishing nothing, and people are at each other’s throats. I’m not so sure why it is hard to recognize that if someone says “this is offensive to me, no matter the circumstances,” they probably don’t want to litigate how offensive it is to them or debate things. Fer fuck’s sake.
trollhattan
Looks like America just found a fresh way to waste time. Lordy, are we in for a motherload of garbage like this.
I’m sure there are plenty regrettable-hair shots of me.
ruemara
Boy, howdy are some people gonna be shocked that America has been a racist AF even into the 90’s. I wonder what Halloween 2019 will bring?
Searcher
1. Public education funding should not vary based on local property values; it’s a system that ensures the poor get worse educations.
2. Food-assistance needs involve at least three times as much money and a quarter the bullshit it does now. Starving poor children leaves them at an incredible disadvantage in every possible way.
(I’m saying “poor” but the reason schools are primarily funded out of extremely local property taxes is because white people don’t want to pay for black children’s education, and the main reason for quashing food assistance is also racism.)
PsiFighter37
So sue me…but I think Fairfax might arguably be in the most trouble now. Herring will survive, and Northam seems to be Honey Badger at this point. But the Fairfax stuff…that’s tough.
The whole thing still smells of GOP ratfuckimg, though. Jesus.
Lyrebird
Shout out for my favorite Jay Smooth video. Which I probably first heard about here.
I probably still have more blind spots than woke spots, but I am one up on Megyn Kelly, in that I don’t figure I’m going to tell other people, African Americans particularly, what they should and should not find offensive.
I also try to call terrorism, including from the KKK, by a true name. State-condoned terrorism.
For all these yearbook photos, if we’re going to dwell on them, I am not sure if I’ve seen anyone note that the EVMS ones were all both blackface and cross-dressing. Whether that’s more to humiliate people by saying they’re women or more homophobia, I dunno. But it adds to the offense.
And I do not want to sweep privilege aside, I just want to say,
the little Bart Kavanaghs I saw in their youth were not blind to the offense of what they were doing.
They were doing it BECAUSE IT WOULD OFFEND PEOPLE THEY WANTED TO PUT DOWN.
Sorry. I hate even remembering these people and the times I had to deal with them.
The Kurtis Blow thing clearly did and does offend, but I can believe it wasn’t the same hardy har har kind of “isn’t dehumanizing people funny?” stuff in that year book.
So grateful to have this blog to read, even if I can’t comment often, and even though my comments usually just wrap up a dead thread.
randy khan
As a pasty white guy myself, I find myself wondering how big a difference there is between the generic blackface stuff (as pictured here) and someone trying to dress up as a specific person who has a darker skin tone. It feels different to me, but one of my colleagues (white, married to a black woman) said more or less that his wife didn’t really see much distinction.
Personally, I find the generic stuff worse because it really focuses on nasty caricature and stereotypes, while the costume stuff feels less like it’s buying into those things. But I also feel like it’s not really my call, since I’m not the one who’s the target.
Roger Moore
@Searcher:
I think this should be extended to all kinds of essential public services, not just education. Deriving primary funding for local government from local funding sources makes intuitive sense, but it helps to entrench inequality. One of the things that really got me about the protests in Ferguson is that the underlying problem was the way the local government was funded. They were legally prevented from raising adequate revenue from property and sales taxes, so they had started to depend heavily on fines that wound up being assessed in an incredibly discriminatory way. The whole situation could be prevented if local governments were funded more equitably.
randy khan
@PsiFighter37:
Since it would be really hard to boot Northam, and he seems to want to try to ride it out, I’m starting to think he’s going to stay. I sure hope he works out a better communications strategy if he’s going to do that, though.
lamh36
apparently it’s probably harder to find a white man of a certain age who DIDN’T don Blackface…smh
I mean is it a right of passage or something?
@PsiFighter37: was just saying on the last open thread.
I mean 2 white politicians admitting to donning Blackface… 1 Black politician being accused of assault in a entirely sketchy situation…and the one who’s the most likely to be made to resign is the Black politician who fervently denies allegations. Ain’t that some shit..
Enhanced Voting Techniques
One could quite easily see someone thinking dressing up as Micheal Jackson as pretty innocent next to frikking mock lynchings. WTF…. ?
Searcher
@Roger Moore: They do it in NY as well, but is there a reason besides “TAXES IS EVIL” that states limit localities ability to raise property or sales tax? If Poughkeepsie wants to have a 10% sales tax, what skin off Albany’s nose is it?
But her emails!!!
@PsiFighter37:
It is beginning to look that way and if that is the case, the Democratic party in Virginia is in some deep shit. The optics of the black lieutenant governor getting forced out of office while the white jackasses who liked to prance around in black face sticking around is really crappy optics.
raven
@Searcher: “Savage Inequalities” is 27 years old.
namekarB
I do and I did. I’m a 72 year old Californian (Northern) and instead of sitting around a potbelly stove or the cracker barrel, the old white guys gather at Starbucks. I don’t know if I got through to them but they sure as hell don’t spew racist crap when I’m around. As a side note, most of them moved up here (near Sacramento) from the Bay Area and are retired businessmen so no blue collar backgrounds. I’m also the token Liberal at the table of conservatives
raven
There was nothing for seeing racism close up like being in the Army in the 60’s. It was a microcosm of the country and quite an education for a dumb ass suburban white boy.
lamh36
Anyhoo…your bit of educational info courtesy on the NMAAHC
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
No one is going to resign. Ironically, there’s safety in numbers.
Martin
@PsiFighter37: Doesn’t matter who blew the whistle. Good to at least see Herring cop to his misdeeds before he got busted. I did get a laugh out of Northam considering switching parties. Glad to see everyone is on the same page with respect to the expectations of Democrats vs non-Democrats on that whole racism thing.
I say again, can we just appoint a black woman to be governor? It probably doesn’t even matter which black woman at this point since it now seems clear that every white man in Virginia did some kind of minstrel internship in college.
kindness
What I find really annoying from all this is all those folk who have to have resignations because! Well, I am impressed with the purity those folk are projecting but that is what it is….projections of personal piety and purity.
Reminds me of Berniebros.
trollhattan
Now, for something completely different.
D.C. area Jackals should do a meet-up there. Bring wine and crumbs!
But her emails!!!
@kindness:
Not dressing in blackface shouldn’t be a high bar
Wild Cat
@lamh36: I understand your concern and sensitivity to this fucked-up shit, but can you let things play out so the Grand Dragon of the Virginia KKK doesn’t become governor? This is a mega-ratfucking. Many of these things don’t ensure an existential threat to you or to anyone in 2019 except if you keep hitting the panic button that will lead to GOP dominion in Virginia. The existential panic is what these 2019 GOP racist fucks want.
Again, I am sensitive to your response to some of these odious things.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Without excusing what Herring did, I think Klan costumes are a whole next level of disgusting. And saying: This is how I want to remember my med school years, and how I want my med school years to be remembered.
Brickley Paiste
@trollhattan:
How can demonstrating one’s wokeness via performative social media postings possibly be a waste of time?
/s
dmsilev
The Onion:
kindness
@But her emails!!!: You can ignore my point which you did. Nicely done too. Honestly I would look at the body of work someone has done while they have been gainfully employed by the state. And funny thing there….all those who are being hounded to quit have been excellent Democrats. That to me means more than photos from many years ago.
Syd the Science Guy
My fraternity. Well shit. My chapter in the 80’s was a downright socialist utopia compared to this. It is a fraternity based in Atlanta with huge strength in the southeast. I’m sure that chapter would shun me for lack of foreskin and hook nose.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@trollhattan: As with most performance art, my reactions are (1) why is this art?, (2) seems kind of silly but (3) if you got somebody to pay you to do it, yay you I guess
Roger Moore
@randy khan:
I feel a tiny bit better about dressing up as a particular person rather than as a generic caricature, if only it’s because it’s so much more likely to be a sign of respect for that individual. OTOH, dressing as a specific person also gives you a lot more ability to be convincing in who you are without needing to change your skin color. A poster in a previous thread mentioned putting together a Flava Flav costume that let everyone know who they were without needing to descend into blackface. I’m pretty sure you could do the same thing for most celebrities you’re trying to imitate.
Yutsano
@kindness: Northam is shooting himself in the foot right now. Fairfax should go nowhere until some sort of proof of the allegation comes forward beyond the he said/she said*. Herring is getting in front of his story before it can get worse. At least one of these gentlemen will survive this mishegas. We should reward the ratfuckers as little as we can here.
lamh36
@Wild Cat: FUQ YOU and your condescending sensitivity…how’s about that.
You don’t fuq’n know me, just as I don’t fuq’n know you…so don’t condescend to me about racism and shit.
don’t fuq’n talk to me like, I don’t fuq’n understand what the hell is going on. I am very much aware of the god damn ratfucking going on…but excuce dafuq out of me for being really tired of white folks telling Black folks…to come on, there are more important things…I WAKE UP EVERYDAY in this Black skin, and I have to deal with racism in all it’s forms.
The shit that Black folks let slide in regards to the daily racism and prejudice we get even from “well meaning” white folk, just cause my skin isn’t pale would make some of you fuq’n cowards never want to leave your house or your damn pets…
So excuse me if I express a problem with someone putting on Blackface makeup just for the fuq’n fun of it knowing it’s hateful and bullshit..
FUQ u and the horse you rode in on.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Saw this a couple of days ago and chose not to share it because Ivanka.
Although curious if the vacuum cleans up after only white bread crumbs,
@Ceci n est pas mon nym
Yeah, definitely falls into the “I knows it when I sees it” category as regards being art.
PsiFighter37
@lamh36: The way I view it is this:
-Northam should go. He should have known better. That said, he’s clearly aiming to ride this out.
-Fairfax is hard to say, but I think it’s much more direct when he is said to have hurt someone on a very direct, personal level. That makes it a little more in-your-face, IMO. Granted, I am not African-American (although mixed-race), so I can empathize with blackface being extremely hurtful.
-Herring did what Northam should have done, and in his case, it sounded a lot more thoughtless and harmless than anything else. NOW, if it somehow comes out that he made up a story to cover something worse – that is different.
In short: Herring should be governor, the other 2 should go (to cut our losses), and we can have special elections and win back both of those seats.
Brachiator
It’s Black History Month. Learn some black history, some American History in a larger context involving all the peoples who make up this country.
In previous threads, I kept seeing stuff about, “well, people didn’t know,” or “we just learned basic American history with white heroes,” or “we just learned about state’s rights.”
One of the photos above shows two people in robes imitating Klansmen and a white student in blackface with a noose around his neck. I keep wondering, what neutral white bread history lesson this is supposed to represent?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
in other plus ca change news…
The Thin Black Duke
I’m tired of white people telling black people that we got to suck it up for The Greater Good—again.
ruemara
@randy khan: There is none. Even if you think you’re doing homage, you shouldn’t. It’s horrible and tied to a terrible past. Don’t do it. You aren’t doing minstrelsy, ok. But it’s still not ok & very harmful. Just wear the clothing and learn their body movements. I fully understand the difference between a person caricaturing blackness and people thinking they’re honoring POC they like who are darker than them. BUT DON’T DO IT. I say this as someone who fully understands what’s happening here.
@The Thin Black Duke: Especially when we already know we have to. and have been doing it for a while.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
Ain’t that some shyt indeed, lamh?
Brachiator
@randy khan:
How often have you seen someone dress up as “a specific person who has a darker skin tone?” Is this a particular desire that you personally have?
West of the Rockies
I really loved Magic Johnson and would have happily worn his jersey (32!). Never pondered trying to look like him in any more meaningful way.
The Thin Black Duke
@ruemara: Exactly. All white people got to do is STOP
VOTING FOR GODDAMNED REPUBLICANS and, oddly enough, it’s difficult for them to do.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
?????
PsiFighter37
@randy khan: No offense, but of the few Balloon Juice meetups I have been able to attend…most of the demographics here are of the older and whiter variety. Y’all should probably listen to a) younger folks who post here, or b) the non-white commentators that are part of the community, since they are in the minority but can give everyone here (me included) more perspective.
joel hanes
All that said :
Slavery is not America’s original sin: Native American genocide is.
As offensive as blackface is, it is no more offensive than costuming as a Native American stereotype, e.g. with a goddamned feather or twelve and beads or “war paint”.
The tomahawk chop should be as obsolete and reviled as Al Jolson.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
Funny how that always seems to be the conclusion??
NotMax
@Brachiator
Zero demand for George Hamilton impersonators.
:)
eemom
@lamh36: @The Thin Black Duke: @ruemara:
My white ass hears y’all, for what that’s worth (if anything). Great smackdown, lamh36.
Spanky
I sincerely hope (but kinda doubt) that Democratic operatives are scouring THE LIVING SHIT out of the pasts of EVERY Republican in the Virginia lege. Not just the leadership, but that’s where they need to start.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
also, I really think we need to take a deep breath on the whole “ratfucking” thing. The picture isn’t faked, Northam said it was him before he was persuaded, by himself and I’m guessing others, that he might be able to deny it. That, and his whole embarrassing performance on Saturday was neither ancient history nor a dastardly Republican plot. That was the man today, his character, his integrity, his intellect, and quite frankly his emotional stability.
NotMax
@joel hanes
Saw this on another thread and let it slide then. Describing Jolson as “reviled” is more than slightly hyperbolic.
ruemara
@joel hanes: It’s not a race. And we don’t need to divert.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ratfucking takes many forms. Bringing up this to sew chaos into the coalition that got him elected, expose his weakness in empathy, especially in the light that people familiar with his school & him KNEW, makes this ratfucking. You don’t have to make things up, in fact, it’s better when you don’t. Everyone has dirt. Choosing when to drop the dirt is the issue.
@Spanky: But the Republican profile is to make themselves the victims. They damned well should though. And shove it in the media’s face.
joel hanes
@NotMax:
Describing Jolson as “reviled” is more than slightly hyperbolic.
Nice job of seizing on an ancilliary detail and ignoring the main point.
Nevertheless :
– I guess it depends on whom you talk to. Let’s ask rikyrah what she thinks of Al Jolson.
– I’d be willing to make a different comparison, though. Who would you suggest as an avatar of offensive blackface ? I guess I could have used Northam himself …
joel hanes
@ruemara:
And we don’t need to divert.
OK. I’ll stifle.
But we need not to forget, and I think this is all too often forgotten or minimized.
I’m done.
lamh36
@ruemara: right, as if Black folks haven’t been taking shit in stride since we made it cross the damn middle passage!
If there is ONE group in the Dem coalition who know about taking one for the fuq’n team, it’s Black folks…so please stop conde-fuqn-scending to us
Spanky
@ruemara: Yep, it’s a counter move for the media war.
Immanentize
@lamh36: {{?}}
But her emails!!!
@kindness:
I’m a 39 year old white guy living is Massachusetts. Whether the good he’s done outweighs the action isn’t my call.
I would note that if this had come out in the primary, Northam wouldn’t have been the Democratic nominee. If it had come out in the general, he might have cost Democrats the governor’s office. As it is now, it could cost us votes and possibly seats in the next election. This despite the fact that there are plenty of other Virginia Democratic politicians who could be doing just as good a job as he is who haven’t donned blackface. Some might even be white males.
NotMax
@joel hanes
Ancillary? You set it out there in pixels and (a) a given and (b) thus an example to follow.
Anyway, this particular topic is wandering too far afield so shall let it be.
Frank McCormick
To me this all reeks of the “I’m shocked, shocked I tell you” reaction from Casablanca. There should be no surprise at our clueless, racist past. And, although, there should be opprobrium when it is (re)-discovered, we need to take time and take into account the entire history of a person’s attitudes before wishing them off to the cornfield.
Steeplejack
My two cents:
1. Even if you’re inclined to issue a pass for blackface, you can’t do that for KKK kosplay. The Klan never meant anything other than intimidation of and terrorism against black people. The whole “protectors of Southern womanhood and bulwark against anarchy” gloss was spray-painted on during the neo-Confederate period that started in the 1890s. Putting on a Klan kostume is way beyond “harmless” blackface.
2. “That kind of racism is a Southern thing. We’re not racist here in Whiteytown, Minnesota.” Missing ingredient: actual black people. When I was in college my father was stationed at an Air Force base in North Dakota. There was a small but noticeable percentage of “non-racist” locals who had “problems” with black service members. Anecdata, but not inconsistent with what I have seen elsewhere outside of the South. (Steve King, R-IA, anyone?) Racism is an American problem.
Ceci7
@Wild Cat: You understand nothing, even when it’s explained to you. And then you have the audacity to tell one of this blog’s most insightful contributors, who is black, that their priorities are messed up. Sounds about white to me.
ruemara
@lamh36: Amen and amen. My heart hurts at the things I feel about this situation. But we have a goddamned modern klan member next in line for office. There’s too much at stake when I want to slap the living shit out of these idiots. Work it out. I want an investigation into Fairfax because I’m TIRED of men abusing women. But the fact that my choice is to stand with people who are so unthinking as to wear blackface. This is when I’m tired of the skin I’m in. I don’t want these choices but I have no choice.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Join me back in 2008 for Tropic Thunder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Or Fernando Lamas …
The Midnight Lurker
It really gets down to a pretty simple choice. Hard, yes. But simple.
You can do what’s right or you can do what’s best.
You guys want to keep Northam and Herring because it’s best for the party, best for Virginia, and ultimately best for the U.S.? Fine. Then you’ve got to give the other side Kavanaugh and King.
And no, it’s not a fair comparison. But that’s the way of the world.
LAC
@lamh36: got plenty of that in the last thread. A lot of condescension. Gotta work hard here to make a point.
A Ghost To Most
@The Thin Black Duke: Would you rather it all burned down? This is about democracy.
geg6
@Steeplejack:
I tend to agree with your take though I’m reluctant to even wade in on this. Cluelessly dressing up as your favorite rapper and owning up to it and sincerely apologizing for it shows stupidity but a full acknowledgement of it. Cosplaying a lynching is just horrific and screwing up the reaction so thoroughly is disqualifying, as for the Lt. Governor’s problem, I fall on the same side I was on with Al Franken—let’s have some investigation and due process before convicting.
A Ghost To Most
@LAC:
People took a beating over the weekend. The urge for scalps is strong here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yup. Same thing I (and Christine Blasey Ford) said about Kavanaugh, too.
ruemara
@Brachiator: You’ve never heard my Fernando
@A Ghost To Most: Have you seen the words we’ve written? Please stop.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ruemara: wasn’t that Billy Crystal’s “you look mahr-velous” character?
there was even a song and video
Chyron HR
@The Midnight Lurker:
The other side GOT Kavanaugh and King.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
And of course, some places were Whiteytown, USA, because they explicitly excluded, expelled or terrorized black folk and other nonwhite people.
History is a muthafucka.
For example: Night of Terror
schrodingers_cat
Whoever dug up these photos knew what they were doing. Here we are fighting with each other for the third straight day.
plato
@A Ghost To Most:
Wow. Yield to the racists or the democracy gets it?
This place has never really been POC friendly. I guess at the end of the all piety, the tribal instincts never go away. Less and less reason to visit this place now.
A Ghost To Most
[email protected]ruemara:
No. This is about more than just black people. This is about all of us. I was disgusted by the level of animus here.
It’s a little late for fee-fees.
Mary G
@Wild Cat: Gotta second lamh here. Saying (*twice!) that you’re sensitive to her concerns or concerned about her sensitivities sounded a lot more like “Fuck your feelings, we have to tolerate racists if they’re Democrats.” That shit does not fly. It’s a false choice. Get rid of the bad Democrats and elect better ones. Even if a Republican ends up temporarily in power in Virginia, you know they’ll be awful and can be unseated in the next election fairly easily.
If we keep finding problems with white men who hung out with all white men in their youth, let’s elect more women of color. They are the foundation of the party, don’t try to rape people, and understand men and white people much better than they understand themselves, because they’ve had to in order to survive. Hard won wisdom should be respected.
chopper
@Spanky:
if i was some sort of billionaire i’d be funding that sort of shit in every state right now.
of course, the difference is when this stuff comes out about a gooper, they usually shrug their shoulders and say “so the fuck what? i’m still governor so fuck you”
LAC
@A Ghost To Most: 300
A Ghost To Most says:
February 6, 2019 at 6:17 pm
@Betty Cracker: Sorry, took LAC’s comment as yours. The point stands.
A lot of abuse has been shelled out here since the ratfuckers dropped their bombs. Is the next ratfucking bomb going to generate a similar purity purge? Fratricide is not a winning strategy, unless you are on the other side.
We are in this together, whether we like it or not. I hate drunks, but if he’s on my side in this, well then, I’ll buy him a bottle.
______________
Yeah we ain’t on the same page….
Renie
If the media is going to start looking at everyone’s yearbook, can they put mc connell at the top of the list?
chopper
@geg6:
yeah, this.
John Cole
@plato: I dunno, I support getting rid of all three of them.
Jeffro
-Jerry Falwell Jr
Now that is a guy who knows from kneepads, holy cow
Wild Cat
@lamh36: You’re a walking gasoline can. And I almost feel it’s on purpose.
Some asshole’s acts from years ago are not an existential threat to you in 2019. The fascists in the GOP are.
You’d shit your pants if you had to do the anti war and anti-racism marches I participated in.
And you can say “fuck.” I won’t think any less pitiful of you.
Spanky
@chopper: Yeah, but that response only plays with an ever-shrinking minority of voters. Even so, @Mary G’s: “Even if a Republican ends up temporarily in power in Virginia, you know they’ll be awful and can be unseated in the next election fairly easily” seems a little too glib. I’m not taking that for granted. at. all.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: I was trying to remember about a hundred years ago last month, was it Falwell and his wife who were found to be in a business partnership with a pool boy they had recently met on vacation? or was that a different legacy bible-thumping conman
Spanky
@Wild Cat: Hey! This is pretty good trollin’ for some guy on the third shift in St. Petersburg! Поздравляю!
chopper
@Wild Cat:
hahaha okay, sparky. oooh, you’re bona fide all right.
Spanky
Apparently, quoting Russian is immoderate to the blog software. I can has release from moderation, pleez?
ETA: Yes, of course it was to Wild Cat.
ETA2: Oooh! That was fast! Thanks!
Sloane Ranger
@NotMax: Serious question in regard to entertainers of previous generations.
Jolson isn’t the only person to don blackface (although it was an integral part of his act). Fred Astaire also donned blackface for his Bojangles of Harlem number in I forget the film but it was during the 1930’s. He and Gene Kelly also made up as Chinese people for a dance routine in, I think, The Ziegfeld Story, during the 1940’s.
Should their contribution to American dance be dismissed and these films never shown because of this?
Also, someone in a previous thread said they weren’t aware of black people putting on white make up when dressing up as their favourite character (if white). I’m not aware of any instances of this, but the 1991 comedy film, True Identity, has Lenny Henry disguising himself as a white man to escape the mob.
Jeffro
@Yutsano:
Northam = was never going to go any higher anyway, and certainly not now.
Fairfax = was going to go higher, but I suspect this will keep him out of any higher offices
Herring = who knows, but he did get out in front and come clean in advance. Also, he’s old, etc.
VA Dems would be smart to write an op-ed about how keeping VA blue and keeping progress moving forward are one and the same, and that regardless of what these men choose to do, the strength here is in its people and we. will. keep up the progress. We will not go back.
Hmm…I might just write that sucker myself…
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nope, same guy (and wife, and pool boy). Ick.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
that’s the guy.
A Ghost To Most
@plato:
Both. That’s their plan.
We are in this together. If I can make common cause with Christians, other people can make common cause with the less than acceptable among us.
If not, the ratfuckers have won.
LAC
@Sloane Ranger: seriously, you post made me throw up in my mouth a little. I think i am done here for now. This is truly a “black folks here, shut up” site. What in the actual fuck is happening here?
Mary G
Here is a collection of tweets in one place that spells something out that I had not been able to articulate myself.
Actual thread starts here:
She’s one of my favorite follows.
Redshift
@Spanky: Yeah. Whoever takes over as governor will preside over redistricting, and we in Virginia have been suffering for ten years because Republicans controlled the last redistricting. Dems here have been working toward this for years, so “we’ll surely vote then out next time” when next time is too late rings pretty hollow.
B.B.A.
Northam and Herring are manifestly unfit for office. Fairfax probably is too. And yes, so is every Republican officeholder in the country, but Republicans are the party of white supremacy and rape so none of them are ever going to step down for it. God-fucking-dammit.
Yarrow
@Mary G:
I don’t know. Republicans seem to do a lot of damage in a short time. And when they’re in power they rig things so Democrats can’t vote as easily.
Steeplejack
@geg6:
I hesitated to weigh in myself. I would add to my previous comment that I was in no way trying to “minimize” blackface. But I have been amazed at how the discussion of Northam has focused almost entirely on the blackface and not the KKK angle.
Immanentize
Y’all are going around and around. For days. And new voices are having their way with you. Take care, loves. This is hard stuff and listening to other folks we otherwise trust so much is always an option.
Mnemosyne
@A Ghost To Most:
Good luck winning elections without Black voters.
Northam is in so much trouble because Black voters pulled him over the line. Now they feel like he’s spitting in their faces, and you want them to sit down and shut up.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: Republicans are working that damage magic even now when they are out of power.