This is pretty typical of how a lot of conservatives on Twitter reacted to the Northam yearbook pictures yesterday. First, they assumed that Democrats would defend Northam, and when Democrats pretty much unanimously criticized Northam (and most called for his resignation), these thoughtful conservatives ended up defending Northam themselves. That’s because, in the Republican party, a picture of one of their elected officials in blackface and/or a Klan robe is more or less just another Friday. See, also, pussy grabbing.
And, yes, maybe a red cap doesn’t make you a racist, but there sure are a lot of racists in MAGA caps.
Another Scott
Republicans don’t have principles, they have tactics and Cleek’s Law.
Northam needs to go quickly.
Cheers,
Scott
Jeffro
Not all Republicans are racists…but almost all racists are Republicans
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’ve thought about this a lot, since he’s my governor, and my grandparents knew his father quite well. They went to the same church on the Eastern Shore for years.
So this is a painful thing for me. I was thrilled that we had another governor from the Eastern Shore (he’s only the second). Besides that, he’s been a great governor. And besides that, he’s spent his whole political career working to help Black Americans. And besides that, he’s-clearly-not-the-same-guy-any-longer-and-don’t-we-all-do-dumb-shit-when-we’re-young?
But acknowledging all that, I think it’s obvious that he has to step aside. We can’t have this, not in 2019. Yes, it’s too bad something stupid he did when he was 25 ends up ending a promising political career. It’s too bad. And I think it’s the right thing to do to forgive him and recognize that, yes, people change, and yes, we all do dumb shit when we’re young that we feel awful about years later.
But we can forgive him and acknowledge all that and still understand that that can all be true even though he has to give up his seat today, in 2019.
I think it’s to our credit as Democrats and as liberals that we can hold both these beliefs in our heads at the same time, and to Republicans’ and conservatives’ shame that they can’t.
Princess
I’m not saying the guy shouldn’t resign, but the whole issue feels like a whypipo game to me. Northam did the thing that all whypipo agree is racist so the whypipo want him to resign and pat themselves on the back for being so good. It’s like the whypipo who think it would and should make a difference to our view of Trump if we learn he said the N-word on tape.
Never mind that there are thousands of children whom the government has lost track of because they are brown children and who cares, and somehow that’s not seen as racist at all.
No wonder there is a race problem in this country.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
But-but-but Lincoln! Robert Byrd! Dems are the TRUE racists!!!!!!!!!
Etc.
OzarkHillbilly
but it does mean you support the racist in the White House.
SFAW
@Princess:
Thanks for sharing.
“Whypipo”? Great, another commenter who thinks he/she is Damon Runyon.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
And it makes YOU the real racist for pointing that out.
geg6
If it’s a red MAGA cap, it’s a racist. If it’s a sport team red hat or just a red hat, probably not but I will test you to be sure. Sorry but, that’s just how it is now. I’m done being nice about it.
Oh, and fuck Eric Son of Eric. Fuck him sideways.
dnfree
A person in a MAGA cap now is judged on their behavior and attitude now. Let’s say that someone age 15 is wearing a MAGA cap now. What if in thirty years when he is 50 he is a liberal? Would liberals argue that because he wore a MAGA cap as a young person, he’s disqualified from holding office as a liberal because it proves he’s a racist? That’s an example of a young person. Northam was nowhere near that young when he appeared in this picture. But apparently he did live in a pretty racist or oblivious environment at that point in his life (the state of Virginia, VMI). What has he done since?
I don’t like the appearance on any side, politically, of people clamoring for someone’s head over behavior from 30 years or so ago if that behavior is not consistent with their life and beliefs in more recent times. People can change, grow, evolve. The reaction shouldn’t just be knee-jerk and instantaneous. There’s a self-righteous air about it. In the age of the Internet, we’re going to be able to find more and more people who aren’t sufficiently “pure”, or weren’t at an earlier time in their life.
dr. bloor
@Princess: NAACP called on him to resign within a few hours after the story broke, as have many other prominent PoC. Doesn’t seem like this is an exercise in white virtue signaling.
opiejeanne
@SFAW: Whypipo has been around for a while now. It’s not a new thing.
rikyrah
Good THREAD about bots:
https://twitter.com/mikefarb1/status/1091170328921935872
SFAW
@dnfree:
(Non-criminal) shit done by a 15-year-old vs as a med school student? How does that work?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@SFAW:
Funny enough, even ignoring the nazi-esque white supremacy the GOP tolerates today, Lincoln still wouldn’t be a Republican today because of all the ultraconservative reactionary values and corporate corruption, the latter of which didn’t happen until after Lincoln had died and the party’s uniting cause of abolitionism had been fulfilled.
rikyrah
I am tired of folks glomming into the Blackface, and not talking about the totality:
It was Blackface AND the KLAN!???
Muthaphucka had Blackface AND the KLAN on his yearbook page…WTF?????
Cause you can’t purse your phucking lips to say that some one in KLAN ROBES was just a ” youthful indiscretion ” even though you were but a mere couple of tests away from PRACTICING MEDICINE??
Rat Farts
@dnfree: in 30 years he’ll be 45 (ducks)
SFAW
@opiejeanne:
Although I am certainly not aware of all Internet traditions, I do not recall ever seeing it on any political blog. And, frankly, it’s (to my tiny mind) an affectation that adds nothing. Someone’s afraid of offending someone else by using “white people”? Well alright then …
different-church-lady
Cleek’s law in real time.
Ohio Mom
On a somewhat related note, the headline in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer: ”CovCath teen’s attorney: lawsuits might be coming.”
According to the article, the family’s law firm sent letters to media outlets as the first step in possible libel and defamation lawsuits. There is a team of seven (!) lawyers working full time to review the media accounts of what happened.
“An example…of false reports were ones that said Nick got into the face of Phillips…”
Apparently there is a definition of “in your face” that includes exact measurements — who knew?
My other favorite line in the article is also from the lead attorney, who said that not all the organizations who receive letters will be sued, it is a process that will not be over quickly, and “There are so many deep-pocket defendants who crossed the line, the process will just roll out…it’s international.”
Well they are going to need a lot of money to pay for all those lawyers.
The Enquirer loves, loves, loves this story, which they have been following closely. It’s very cheap and easy to cover, being in their backyard, and most of their readership must be lapping it up.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Princess:
I sort of get what you’re saying as I’m sure they’re plenty of people out there like that, but it’s possible to think Northam should resign and think what the Trump administration is doing to migrant children is disgustingly racist.
SFAW
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
No argument from me re: Lincoln. Similarly, Jesus would be cast out of most modern evangelical cults, because he believed in ministering (so to speak) to the “least” of us.
Hell, Reagan and Nixon would be cast out of the Rethug Party, most likely.
rikyrah
This?This?This?
Lynn V (@lynnv378) Tweeted:
And I can’t stop thinking about that statement, “youthful indiscretions” for a whole grown ass man in medical school. And the names of Tamir Rice, Jordan Edwards, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Laquan McDonald, Stephon Clark Rekia Boyd, & many others keep running through my head.
https://twitter.com/lynnv378/status/1091673778713710597?s=17
dr. bloor
@SFAW: Try dropping in on a few articles on The Root. “Wypipo” is decidely not a term designed to avoid offending others.
cmorenc
Morally, Northram is obviously a vastly different person than the one who posed for a grossly inappropriate photo 35 years ago, and deserves to be forgiven.
Tactically, however Northram’s continuation in office would create an unacceptable amount of drag against his fellow Ds, especially within blue-trending Va, but also nationally. Remaining if office would gratuitously give both some cover to the GOP for racists within their rank, as well as ammo to fire back with. He needs to recognize that he is now such a huge political liability for Ds and progressives that his ability to achieve anything constructive by further remaining has been fatally undermined. OTOH, if Northam resigns by early next week, the whole incident will quickly fade from having any continuing adverse impact on Ds political fortunes. Do the right thing Ralph, fall on your political sword.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Princess:
What the hell are you going on about? Who — on our side — says (or would even think) that the horrendous southern border policies of this administration (very much including the tearing apart of families) are not at heart racist? It is, in very obvious fact, the opposite of your absurd claim.
Yeah, sure, racist conservatives (but I repeat myself) push back on the notion that our border actions are racist, but c’mon, whaddya expect, of course they do.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: I read all his tips and then mentally added, “and finally, abandon Twitter altogether because it’s corrosive to good public dialog.”
Gravenstone
Not exactly germane to the thread, but wanted to drop this observation out there.
It seems Trump might have another source of shit that fills his head (aside from Fox and Friends), Sicario, Day of the Soldado. A lot of the more inane natterings he’s issued about the southern border all seem to have originated in this particular movie. Delusional doesn’t begin to describe his broken little brain.
Matt McIrvin
To me it’s not really about what the Ralph Northam of today truly deserves. It’s politics, and larger principles as expressed in politics. When you’re an elected official, you’re signing on to some things being more important than whether the world is fair to you. Northam just can’t be a governor from our party with this thing in his record. I felt the same way about Al Franken–many of his supporters complained that he was somehow being treated unfairly, but it didn’t really matter whether he was being treated fairly; he was a Democratic Senator. Bigger things are at stake.
joel hanes
@SFAW:
Similarly, Jesus would be cast out of most modern evangelical cults
and vice versa, because he casts much shade on ostentatious piety
opiejeanne
@SFAW: I don’t think they’re afraid of offending white people by using “whypipo”, quite the opposite. I’ve seen it quite a bit on Twitter, starting before Kavanaugh. It refers to a certain type of white people, ones who behave as Princess described.
dr. bloor
@cmorenc:
This isn’t obvious at all. Someone who was “vastly different” would have been more likely to recognize the fact that the photo was brutally offensive to a large number of folks whose votes he was trying to win, come clean about it, and make an effort to articulate why that picture no longer represents who he is.
Princess
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: I am talking about the fact that this story appeared only a couple of weeks ago (I only saw it today) and got barely any attention at the same time we were all very concerned to let the world we know the Covington kids are racist and that Northam is racist. Yes, we all should be able to talk and chew gum at the same time, but a lot of us seem to find it hard or maybe not worth doing.
Family Separation May Have Hit Thousands More Migrant Children Than Reported
opiejeanne
@Ohio Mom: Huh. So if they do follow through and file lawsuits, they may not like the results nor the publicity that stems from the media reporting accurately on that kid’s behavior. .
Another Scott
@cmorenc: I’m uncomfortable saying that it’s somehow obvious that Northam is no longer racist or has totally changed from then because he’s supported good policies and nobody has heard him say anything racist.
My father was a good man, did a lot in his church, was a secret Santa to poor AA families at Thanksgiving and Christmas, etc. Never cursed, rarely drank, was kind to animals.
And when he got together with old friends, he would (at least once when in my hearing) tell racist jokes.
:-(
“Good people” can still be racist, and they need to recognize it.
Racism will only stop being casually acceptable when we demand that it stop. Northam has to go.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@Princess: That breaks my heart. I can’t imagine being a parent and suddenly realizing that my child will never be returned to me. They need to be charged with kidnapping, but it will barely be a blip on the news.
Van Buren
@SFAW: Speaking of Lincoln, he spoke out against interracial marriage and was against blacks being allowed to serve on juries…in 1858. I guess he should have been asked to resign.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@opiejeanne: No kidding. If one of those kids was mine, I’d want him out of the limelight.
Nicole
@SFAW: Here:
https://www.theroot.com/the-2018-wypipo-awards-1831267430
Tommy Green
I think it’s a liberal value to believe in redemption; true redemption. I think it’s a liberal value to believe that people can grow beyond their upbringing. Northam apparently grew up in a racist environment – I guess, I don’t know much about his upbringing (and agreed with rikyrah – the klan costume is the much bigger problem) – but according to at least one person posting here, he’s lived his adult life in an entirely opposite manner. Again, I don’t know much about the before and the current of Northam’s life’s experiences and actions.
But I guess if we don’t allow for true personal growth and redemption, if we’ve become so jaded by the false redemptive stories of the right, then we’ll have to ask John Cole to leave his own blog.
opiejeanne
@dr. bloor: Thanks. I follow a number of people on Twitter who are AfAm. It was a pretty common term. I shut up and listened, for once.
JPL
@rikyrah: He can’t remember weather he was blackface or klan. Maybe he played both sides so many times, that he can’t remember this particular incident. f.kem
opiejeanne
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: If it’s not about you, it’s not about you.
Frankensteinbeck
@Princess:
Whatever the African-Americans in the Virginia government decide on, I’ll go with them. As a white person, I can see that it was awful, but nuances like deserved punishment and whether he has changed are beyond my experience. If the overwhelming consensus is ‘Hell, yeah, he has to go’ I will remember that for future judgments. Last I heard they wanted to discuss it among themselves.
JPL
@cmorenc: I hope your analysis is correct and that he has changed. Now we will see whether or not he can put the party first.
Kalimama
@rikyrah: YES!!!!
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Thank you.
This isn’t about due process. There is no due process for a high-profile role in public service, and certainly not in public opinion at any level.
This is about maximizing the effectiveness of the liberal wing/Democratic Party to make desperately needed change to governance and society. Northam is now ineffective, because many (including me) cannot trust him. That might strike others as overreaction to one incident, but I find his intentional cover-up of the photo for all of the intervening years to be indicative of shifty character, too.
We will be more effective without him.
Raoul
@cmorenc: Yes, this. Also tactically, he has more of a chance to rehabilitate his career if he resigns quickly and with humility. I’m not saying he can be a high level elected again, but he could certainly lead a large institution, nonprofit or political group.
If he lingers and does the ’embattled’ thing, it leaves a bitter taste. I know lots of Repubs just brazen it out and stay. But that’s part of the reason so many of us despise and disrespect the GOP.
SFAW
@dr. bloor:
Been to The Root a few times (too few, I guess), but hadn’t spotted it there. I guess I need to go there more frequently. Thanks for setting me straight
@opiejeanne:
Thanks
@Nicole:
Thanks
ETA: And belated apologies to Princess for my clueless response.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: This also isn’t about R hypocrisy or R anything. This is about us.
rikyrah
???
Imma let you finish, but, KAMALA2020 (@Bravewriting) Tweeted:
Abrams @staceyabrams is the Queen of my life.
She just wrote the definitive piece on Identity Politics and it is glorious.
I’m crying because she just said everything I have been trying to tell you.
But sooo much better than I ever could.
READ IT NOW!!
https://t.co/GrsSV8fYfe https://twitter.com/Bravewriting/status/1091436224525393921?s=17
laura
“He’s not that guy anymore” is only available to be used to preserve the dominant structure of power and privilege.
It’s a shortcut or work around to skip the true meaning – the suffering of others, their subjugation is just to damn bad. What’s the use of having power and privilege if you’re not allowed to use it?
Those who are on the receiving end somehow never are afforded the same space and respect to be heard because it’s terribly disruptive of the paradigm.
Northam should resign before noon.
On the other hand, the Detroit police officer who forced a young woman to walk away from her car days ago in this weather, filmed and mocked her and posted his power move – I’d like to see him forced to swim out to the middle of lake Lake Michigan.
Wag
@dnfree:
This. The governor needs to get in front of this and acknowledge his error, and point out specific actions he has taken to refute his past actions. America should be a country of forgiveness and the ability to earn back rights which were previously stripped from you by showing that you have grown.
The Democratic Party has championed the restoration of felons right to vote after the felon has served their time. I don’t see why the Democrats can’t be the party that looks at where politicians are now, and forgives past transgressions, if their current actions demonstrate sufficient growth as a person.
Tim C.
Here’s my more nuanced thinking: A lot of this comes from my own personal experience teaching at a very white, rural high school outside Portland, Oregon.
1) We got a whole bunch of racist mother-feckers in this country who love to play the “I’m not racist” game.
2) Republican politicians from the late 60s on correctly deduced part of the formula for victory in the South, and now a lot more rural areas, is to get as many outright racists as possible to the polls and give them a plausible cause to express that racism in some disguised manner. (Tough on Crime, myths about wellfare services, now it’s coded as immigration talk)
3) Part of this whole dance is a culture, where as young men and women, that racism gets expressed in the more traditional manner of symbols of the confederacy, use of offensive racist language, and other kinds of boundary pushing. The worship of firearms is deeply tied into this too. “Owning the libs” has different names in different places, but yeah, the knuckleheads love to do offensive things as a way of proving they are better and more loyal to the “cause” they have.
4) So, part of what we, as Democrats and Liberals have developed is a kind of sense that if you use that kind of language/imagery, we can pretty much assume you are *AT BEST* a clueless idiot, and at worst an outright racist yourself. Part of our internal rule set, is that while youthful sins can be forgiven, perhaps based on internal culture, adults who use these symbols and images, even as a “joke” are probably not trustworthy and have ill motives.
So here’s the conclusion.
Northram needs to go. Not because he is a racist now, or even that he was anything worse than a 24-karat moron then. He needs to go because one of the few objective measures we can use (The person’s intentional use of racist images and words) to determine their views on race. Erick, son of Erik and many others are sure this is a perfect moment to let their racist freak-flags fly; the media is practially salvating at the chance to both-sides us again, he has to go.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Agreed. This is about showing the Black people in our coalition, and the rest of the country, that we really mean what we say we mean. That’s worth a lot more than some solitary dude going through a “process” that he isn’t entitled to anyway.
Sebastian
@rikyrah:
Saw this the other day. Very good thread, thanks for posting.
I am concerned about 2020. With deep fakes becoming really good and us Dems more often than not knee jerking, I can see us running into a trap. On the other hand, maybe Mueller is disabling the GOP ratfucking ops nexus somewhat for this cycle with Stone out of the picture.
Or maybe the GOP was really mostly relying on Stone all this time.
But isn’t this crazy? So much ratfucking, so much bullshit, so much suffering on a national and global scale just because we didn’t take out (legally) a handful guys decades ago? Shit is seriously broken and out of whack.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes. I’ve never seen anybody with as much capacity to forgive as Black Americans. Even so though, I don’t know if it applies in this case. I think we can forgive people, and forgive him specifically, while still acknowledging that he can’t do his job effectively now.
palaver me
@SFAW: maybe just try speaking less about shit you don’t know anything about. :)
Suzanne
@Wag:
I would see evidence of sufficient growth if he had admitted to this years ago without getting caught, and apologized at the time.
Waiting until you get caught and then groveling does not strike me as evidence of sufficient growth.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Just to be clear, Northam, while I suspect it’s fake by the way wingnuts are acting, if it’s true he has to go. The 80s weren’t the 50s – I am the same age as Northman and at the time would have thought blackface, KKK hoods and Nazi uniforms were all the same back in the 80s.
Wag
@Suzanne:
Fair point. I would have hoped that his oppo researchers would have found this and given him the opportunity to address this much earlier.
laura
@rikyrah: like a refreshing drink of cold water on a hot day!
Truth, laid out simply and clearly, for all to see.
leeleeFL
@geg6: Couldn’t find my Trusty Rusty Pitchfork, or I would get right on this.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: Thanks for sharing that. Abrams’ response to Fukuyama was great, and I also thought the other two responses were excellent.
Suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Northam admitted that it’s real.
Elizabelle
@JPL: He has absolutely changed. That is what makes this so painful for a lot of Virginians.
First: Ralph Northam’s position is untenable. It was (a) wrong to be in those photographs, and (b) never have addressed the issue. He has been abandoned by those who were his allies. The latenight roundup in the WaPost was brutal. So: resignation it is.
But: I want all of you to know how supportive he is of women’s healthcare — recall that he was in hot water this very week over a proposed bill in the Virginia house to allow 3rd trimester abortions, which are very rare and usually the result of gross fetal abnormality. The Richmond Times Dispatch researched it — there were two, count it, two in recent years (as in, the last recorded was in 2004). First reported as “three.” But he wanted to respect the woman’s decision in those very rare and exceedingly painful situations.
Also on expanding Medicaid. Which he accomplished, after Terry McAuliffe and the Democrats worked for that goal in the years previous and in winning the 2009 elections, brilliantly.
I was shocked and horrified to see the blackface and KKK costumes. I wonder if Northam took that ugliness so lightly at the time. Was it going along to get along? I doubt it reflected his later life: he served in the US Army as a pediatric neurologist, and the Army and military are way ahead of many other fields in employment of minorities and people from impoverished and undereducated backgrounds. You can make a real difference with military service, and get all kinds of education, both formal and practical.
And I am sure he saw a lot of need and tragedies and things we could be doing better.
Now to those photos, and who knows what else is out there. Northam failed in appearing in them, for sure, and in a duty to disclose. He needed to address those photos years ago, on his own, and tell folks why he did it at the time and why he would not now. To apologize for the hurt he caused and his complacency. That did not happen. The photos were waiting in the background, like unexploded ordinance.
Perhaps the voters would have forgiven him. Perhaps not. But they deserved that information, and Northam’s party deserved the information. Nobody deserved being blindsided. It’s only amazing this never came out before.
It’s my hope that Northam will have some illuminating things to say on this, once he has time out of the maelstrom to reflect on it. Because he does not seem to be a jerk now, although those photos clearly depicted two jerks and another one behind the camera.
Also, one thing that struck me from the WaPost shortly after the story broke: Northam was head of the honor committee at VMI, which is a pretty conservative institution. That gave me a twinge: his classmates trusted him. Because he had assured them he was like them? In prejudices too, or the apparent sharing of them? This is not to slam all VMI alumni. That would be unfair. But that school has a reputation of being years behind the times.
Virginia has changed a lot, rapidly, with population influx, primarily in NoVA but elsewhere in the state too. 1984 is 35 years ago, true. It’s also less than 20 years after the state embraced Massive Resistance, which was still being dealt with by the US Supreme Court in 1968.
None of this is to excuse Northam. It is to place him in context. He is not a Rick Scott or a Steve King or a George Allen. Because he really worked on behalf of issues Democrats care about, and was out ahead on a lot of them.
Which is why this is painful and not knee jerk to me and a lot of folks in Virginia. This is not an Alan Grayson style loudmouth. This is a far better and more serious public servant.
japa21
It occurs to me that this whole thing came out not just to discredit Northam but to discredit the whole Dem Party. I have no doubt this is an example of ratfuckery from the right. The question is, “why now?”.
I think Eric son of Eric’s tweet says it all. They expected Dems to come out and kind of brush it away as being so long ago. And I think they are surprised that the vast majority of the response has been to condemn and ask for Northam to step down.
They wanted to go after the Dems with the “You were holding something against Kavanaugh from long ago, why not Northam?” tactic and it didn’t work. If anything, this will be more evidence that the Dems do care.
And as @Enhanced Voting Techniques: says, this was the 80’s, not the 50’s or even 60’s.
Yes Northam may well have changed a lot, but he needs to back off now.
Bess
@Tommy Green:
This is what I wanted to say. If we don’t allow for true personal growth and redemption then what sort of people are we?
Let’s not send a possibly good person straight to the executioner without checking them out. Again.
Immanentize
We teach a process of apology for mistakes in our legal clinics for our students to be prepared to deal with their inevitable mistakes as lawyers. Any full apology (or if you prefer, redemption) requires three things:
1) Acknowledgement that what you did was wrong and why it was wrong;
2) Empathy and understanding of the hurt it caused others and
3) Making that wrong right.
Northam hasn’t even scratched #1. Of course he should resign.
Then should feel free to run for governor again at a later date.
And his yearbook page he says he wanted to be a pediatrician?
debbie
@Suzanne:
We will be more effective if we loudly point to the unrepentant racism of members of the GOP like Steve King and Mitch McConnell and demand that they, too. resign.
Kayla Rudbek
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): forgiveness only comes AFTER contrition and doing penance, and I’m not even sure that Northam is at the true contrition state yet, or if he’s only sorry that he got caught. And IMAO the penance should be set by Black Virginians and/or Black Americans , which doesn’t include me so I am going to shut up on this, watch, listen, and go with whatever they recommend.
Amir Khalid
Erick Erickson considers himself a moral bellwether for die Gesichterfressendeleopardenpartei. And the party’s first and only moral principle these days is that the Democrat party is always wrong. Even if the GFLP must contradict itself to say it.
Tim C.
@japa21: Agree 100%. This was known for a while and one of the GOP’s fundamental weaknesses is imagining that we are just their mirror image.
Tazj
Like everyone else here I wanted Northham to resign as quickly as possible. Apparently no one knows what the hell he’s going to do now.What a mess!
Suzanne
@Bess:
Losing your job in government is not being “sent to the executioner”. No one is saying that he should never work again. He’s not going to be destitute on the street. He’s going to return to private life. And he admitted that the photo is real. Even if it is a ratfuck, he did it, and he covered it up for years. That sucks.
He gets to keep his job in public service as long as he has the public trust.
Kayla Rudbek
@Immanentize: what you said.
Suzanne
@debbie: I agree with you. Steve King and McConnell and Gohmert and a whole slew of others should also be out on their asses. You will never hear a peep of argument from me on that.
opiejeanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: You’re a bit behind the news. Northam acknowledged the photo as real but wouldn’t admit which person was him.
Suzanne
I absolutely believe in personal redemption. I don’t believe that one is entitled to keep one’s highly prominent and well-compensated job in public service while one is supposedly busy redeeming oneself.
He should go redeem himself for a while and then run again if he wants. At that point, the electorate can judge if that work is sufficient.
Mandalay
Jonathan Martin @ NYT from this morning:
WTF?
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: Agreed.
More people should go the “John Profumo” route. But then return to public life, if they still feel called. I’d rather have repentant sinners with an expanded compassion for human foibles than the Christianist prigs we get now.
Immanentize
@Suzanne: This is how I feel.
And, I pretty much agree with Kos (please don’t pie me) at the GOS on this one.
SFAW
@palaver me:
Gee, thanks. Your response will get all the consideration it merits.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah. I definitely think he’s a political liability now and couldn’t effectively govern anyway. It’s very possible he’s changed, but that’s too bad. He can always run again if and when the the public deems he’s sufficiently redeemed and repentant.
When I first started trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, I thought his yearbook photos were from high school, not Medical School when he was 25. That’s way too old to not know any better. The other point that he never mentioned this before in the intervening 30 years also made me think. At some point he should have brought this up and apologized for it. Better yet, he shouldn’t have dressed up like that in the first place.
japa21
@Mandalay: @Mandalay: His actions already indicate that if it wasn’t him in the picture that he did do those kind of things back then. So either way he is screwed, and this kind of attempt just makes it look worse.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Is it something you can summarize?
Mandalay
@japa21:
Right, but it’s even more basic than that: yesterday Northam admitted he was in the photo (didn’t he?), but now he’s denying it?
I’m wondering if an aide has whispered in his ear: “Look – nobody can actually prove you were in the photo – change your story!”.
He’s surely a racist, but he’s still damn good at Calvin ball.
Brickley Paiste
I’m not sure what to think about the Northam thing, I am going to wait for Joy Reid to weigh in.
Suzanne
@Immanentize: That’s a good statement of why I feel the way I do. Thx.
Betty Cracker
Looks like Northam plans to stick around and be a liability to the party — in a critical state and during the run-up to an election in which democracy is on the line. Great.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: yeah I guess, kinda:
That picture is really bad.
The is no political statute of limitations on racism, sexism, rapeyness etc.
If you’ve changed, tell people before you ask for their vote.
Northam and his supporters were happy to get the GOS endorsement and $$ but don’t think they have any standing to complain now?
He hid that picture because he knows the Dem. Voters would not have supported him knowing it existed.
Gex
@SFAW: that’s actually a term that’s been invented for FB so FB doesn’t automatically censor black activists or the black people who post racist messages they get with commentary.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
For a day or two. He has a bit of time to prove he wasn’t in that picture. And explain why it’s on his page.
Raoul
Well, he’s bungling it horribly. So my earlier comment about resigning ‘quickly and with humility’ is void.
SFAW
@Gex:
Thanks for the (additional) education. Not a Facebook user, but I can see the reasoning behind the term’s genesis
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Princess: I’m really not trying to be an asshole here, but your view that the strong (and rightly so) liberal reactions to the CovCath dipshits and now this Northam incident means that concerns and actions regarding the racist, xenophobic immigration policies of the goddamn fascists have somehow taken a backseat (to the point of “not seen as racist at all”) is, sorry to say, flatly ridiculous.
What, you believe the massive, ongoing resistance to “Wall” – and relatedly, defense of the Dreamers and opposition to the American Gestapo (aka, ICE) – is, I don’t know, maybe about the money or something?
No, it’s actually and obviously all about the racism – which we’re against – and we are collectively going to the mat big-time with the Republicans over it. Very much including the beyond-despicable actions and policies of our Gestapo tearing families apart and losing track of children thereby – no one on our side is dismissing or forgetting about that, whatever your perception about insufficient liberal/Democratic attention to some FTFNYT article may be.
The CovCath MAGAt incident and Northam’s dumbassery pale in comparison, as of course they should. Seriously, you couldn’t be more wrong about this.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Fuck. Seriously?
Mandalay
It seems unthinkable, but if Northam does not resign, he will be giving the Republicans the moral high ground on blackface, since this happened just last week: Florida Secretary of State Resigns After Blackface Photos Surface
Right now I hate Northam with the heat of a thousand suns. His refusal to resign is just mind boggling.
Cheryl from Maryland
Northam needs to resign. I’m about his contemporary and a native Virginian — growing up near his undergraduate school, VMI (full of Confederate rituals) and went to college near his medical school. It was bad news then, and it is now. Especially since his medical school is near the Ghent District of Norfolk, which became majority black after WWII. His medical college serves a majority black area (Newport News/Hampton/Norfolk). So he was in a privileged bubble when at school if he didn’t recognize how wrong BOTH costumes were. And no explanation other than “I didn’t have a yearbook, have never seen that image before, and never went to that party, so it is news to me” can even begin to heal the breach. I’m not certain it can be healed. This incident also destroys any moral authority he has going forward as governor. His actions this fall in siding with pipelines and plans to build a compressor in a historic black town (Union Hill, founded after the Civil War by freed slaves) weren’t helping him or his party, and this revelation poisons the well even more. Northam needs to put the larger issues ahead of himself — issues like the trust of the backbone of the Democratic Party in VA, like the election this November in which the Democrats could control the General Assembly, the calls by his fellow Democrats to resign. For more info: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2019/02/02/virginia-democrats-overwhelmingly-call-on-northam-to-resign/
George
Look, I’m late to the game with my comment. I’m a long-time lurker and an infrequent commenter.
The idea that liberals are so willing to dump someone who posed in blackface 35 years ago is insane. Tell me, did he actually act on any racist beliefs? Did he engage in any violent racist acts? Did he post racist flyers on bulletin boards? Did he engage in any tiki torch marches?
Conservatives just got someone who very likely engaged in sexual assault appointed to the Supreme Court. Those conservatives fully supported someone who was completely unrepentant, either by word or deed.
And liberals now judge a fellow Democrat for being in a photo from 35 years ago, despite any change and growth and development he has had?
Look, I grew up in a conservative household. I was a conservative until my mid-20s, when I started graduate school and moved away from rightwing family and friends. If Northram had voted Democratic throughout his life, but had posed for questionable photographs in 1985, does that make him better or worse than guys like me who may not have posed for similar photos, but who voted straight Republican?
To those of you who have always been liberal and who grew up in liberal households, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Not everyone is as fortunate as you. Some of us have had to come to liberalism on our own, though the events in our lives, through our own evolution and development. Some of us may have carried unfortunate beliefs into our 20s or later because of the social pressures of family and friends.
If you make no allowances for the role of personal growth, you damn a huge segment of the population.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: I hear what you are saying, and it pains me to lose someone who is a passionate advocate for women’s health, as someone who worked in that field myself.
However…I also think this is another instance where we have to draw a line in the sand, for the good of the party, the good of VA, and the good of the country. Just like with the Al Franken affair, if Northam doesn’t fall om his sword and resign, he will become a distraction and a bludgeon that our political enrmies will use against us.
Besides, looks like the Black Caucus of VA has spoken and *they* want him to resign. I think their wishes should prevail. African-Americans are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and it’s way past time that we Dems acted like that really mattered.
Gov. Fairfax will do just fine carrying on the good things that Gov. Northam has initiated. And with any hope, the next time that the racist assholes in the VA state houses want to recognize the arch-traitor Robert E. Lee, he won’t be sitting out his protest alone.
Darkrose
@rikyrah: Plus his yearbook from VMI that lists his nickname as “Coonman”.
Darkrose
@Tommy Green: Redemption must be earned. Currently Northram is apparently insisting that wasn’t him in those pictures, so fuck him.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: Yeah. Came to that conclusion myself, late last night. This was a shock to process.
Heard a few moments ago from an African American friend whose opinion I respect. She says she was not surprised. Circumspect about saying much more. And a big fan of Justin Fairfax, so there is that to be happy about.
Tony in San Diego
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): that’s why Senator Franken had to resign, and
Re[publicans can get away with it.
Ohio Mom
@George: Thank you. I myself remain very ambivalent, mainly because I can’t figure out how Northram could have addressed this sooner.
“Vote for me for Governor, I’ll make our great state greater by doing X,Y and Z, and by the way, my med school yearbook contains a really awful picture of me that I now renounce”? How do you work this into a conversation out of the blue?
That said, his apology attempts so far have been embarrassingly lame and wanting.
Out of curiosity, I looked at the Rev. Dr. Barber’s twitter. He writes it’s people’s right to call for Northram’s resignation and adds that he doesn’t know what Northram has done “in word, deed and policy to make amends,” implying he can’t know what this all means to Northram. I don’t know what to make of that.
Lyrebird
@rikyrah: Too true.
re: young Tamir Rice, I see that his mom is creating a youth center in his memory.
I still have no words.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: I have to admit that I was at first inclined to be skeptical about that photo, because of the timing over the late-term abortion bill. I thought it might have been doctored, so to speak. But it’s real, and it seens to be part of a pattern with real political consequences for A-A citizens of the state, which your friend was probably alluding to. Rikyrah and lamh and Darkrose are right – we can’t ignore the kind of pain that image makes fun of, at all.
Lyrebird
@George:
I think I hear what you’re saying. And I thought Kavanagh ruled himself out on his 2018 behavior. I hugely respect the Black Caucus in the VA lege for meeting with the Gov in person before making a public call for resignation. Did you see what Aleta shared last night, re: Northam paving the way for a big natural gas plant (sorry if I miss details) in a historic African American neighborhood, over local objections?
Iirc it was Ruemara reporting in as disappointed but not surprised by the photo. Same here. Fwiw, I’m going with what those caucus members concluded, since they have way more info than I do. I think that trying to be a big-tent party means more painful moments like this, and I am so glad to have the full range of BJ commenter perspectives to read.
TommoRolassi
@SFAW: I believe the notion is that it’s supposed to be dialect — if I’m not mistaken it is used by at least some African Americans on e.g. TheRoot.com
laura
@George: The problem is personal growth is limited to those with power. For those without power, they are expected to bootstrap without boots.
FYI, huge segments of the population have been, and continue to be damned. What they have in common is a lack of white male privilege.
Aleta
@Immanentize: Exactly.
The context of the picture is that it happened at a time when there were pipe bombs and increasing threats against black people in the DC area, VA and MD (not only there). The Klan had been recruiting more openly, numbers reported to be increasing. They were giving interviews to reporters.
In the 80s there was publicity about opposition to them, especially in towns where they applied for permits to march. That picture at that time represents being on the side of anti-affirmative action, anti-busing, and anti-federal intervention by the courts. It doesn’t represent youthful unawareness. Very upsetting that the guys at that school were there to attain positions of power in the Army, medicine and government.
Another Scott
Popehat:
Yeah, Ralph, it’s not a defense.
I guess his plan last night was to have his “morning” press conference be more contrition and to try to ride out the storm. I take the delay and the push-back on the rumors that he’s trying to say that it wasn’t him – and their failure – to be a good sign that it’s not working and that there’s still a chance that he’ll end it today.
Cheers,
Scott.
LAC
@rikyrah: Girl, how you do this heavy lifting in this site day in and day out? THIS, 1000 times! Whatever is in the water that makes a black kid of 11 a menace to be shot on sight and also makes a 25 year old white male medical student a mere babe in the woods is some powerful shit.
dr. bloor
@George: His decision not to disclose the photo before he was elected, as well as his actions this morning, suggest that Northam is…lacking…in the personal growth you seem so convinced he’s undergone.
Aleta
Erickson, conservatives:
1. That’s a racist picture and Dems are hypocrites. Ha!
2. “But the more I think about it” … I just admitted that blackface and Klan costumes are racist and young people should be held to account for racist actions. Uh oh !!!
(Reverse engines)
Mandalay
@George:
No. The idea that someone who profited by hiding their dirty secret for 35 years should get away with it with no consequences is insane.
Northam has had 35 fucking years to address this, and yet he claims he’s “accepting responsibility’ only after he got caught?
Yesterday I wanted Northam to resign and quietly go away. But his conduct in the last 24 hours makes me want him to be humiliated and shunned for the rest of his life. He disgusts me now. Fuck him.
Redshift
@Another Scott: The Democratic caucuses of the State Senate and the House of Delegates have called on him to resign, along with the Democratic committee chairs for the largest jurisdictions. He cannot possibly ride this out.
I’ve never loved Northam, but I’ve always liked him, and he’s done a good job, so this whole thing makes me feel ill. But it also reminds me of John Edwards, in that during all his years of running for office and rising to higher offices, this was a time bomb that could have gone off at some point.
There probably was never a time when he could have disclosed this and apologized and gotten past it (he might have served in public office, but definitely never would have been nominated statewide), but that still doesn’t make it right to have sat on it.
I agree with my friends in the legislature, who say that it gives them no joy to say so, but he has to step down.
Citizen Alan
@Another Scott:
I was 37 when I politely but firmly asked my 77-year-old father never to use the N-word in my presence again. And he never did. And unless he and my mom lied to me, he voted for Obama twice.
Citizen Alan
@JPL:
That is the most bizarre thing to me. I can’t imagine looking at a picture of two people wearing any costumes in a Halloween picture and not knowing which of the two was me.
Dmbeaster
Yeah, Erick Erickson, and some people became Nazis for the business opportunity like Schindler. It still makes you a sh!t based on your choice of company.
Betty Cracker
@Ohio Mom: It would certainly have been awkward to bring it up, but it’s not impossible. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave a great speech about removing the Confederate monuments in that city some years back. He explained his own cluelessness about the statues as a younger man in a very effective way.
It’s not perfectly analogous — Landrieu hadn’t personally engaged in overtly racist behavior that was captured on film. But he explained his journey on the issue. Many Democratic politicians, including President Obama, have had to explain how they went from opposing to supporting marriage equality.
I didn’t follow the Virginia gubernatorial race all that closely, but IIRC, Northam’s opponent was a neo-Confederate shitbird. That was an opening to talk about race and personal growth. Not necessarily to distribute that awful photo to the press, but to say something like, “Look, when I was a young man growing up in the South, I said and did stupid things that I now regret. I’ve grown up since then and invite Mr. GOP Candidate to join me in the 21st century.”
Ruckus
@laura:
How about pushed out of a helicopter 50 ft up, in the middle of Lake Michigan, and he gets to swim back if he can?
Suzanne
@Citizen Alan: I have never enjoyed dressing up in costumes for Halloween or parties or plays or anything, and the older I get, the more I realize that that is not bad.
Shana
Don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this, I’m only up to comment #70, but let’s not forget that we have elections in Virginia this year, House of Delegates, State Senate, lots of local governance offices. We, as Virginia Democrats, need to get this behind us so it doesn’t become a real issue in November. Or more of an issue that it already will be.
I like what Ralph’s been able to do with the exception of his environmental record and the pipeline issues, but we need to clean house.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
The crux of the matter.
Forgive him his transgressions? Sure, he’s done good as a mature adult, as a human being he seems currently to be a first rate example.
Be effective in his political job in 2019 as a liberal? No, that’s really not possible.
His growth as a human seems far better than many, but then his starting point to that was pretty damn low, as @rikyrah: said so well, he can’t remember if he was blackface or robe guy. This picture didn’t stick out to him, this was his normal enough thinking at that time that he can’t remember it. It wasn’t a special event.
low-tech cyclist
The thing that really gets me about Erickson is: look at the time stamp on that tweet! At 5:34pm yesterday, many people hadn’t even heard about the picture yet, and many of those that had were only just finding out that it really WAS Northam’s yearbook pic, and not a wingnut Photoshop hack job.
Erick was eager to believe the worst of his enemies, on the basis of…no reaction yet to a story that was just breaking.
He claims to be some sort of Christian. Fuck that noise.
#lurker3000
@dr. bloor: This! Today’s performance makes it even clearer.he should resign now.
Ruckus
@low-tech cyclist:
He is some sort of christian. A real shitty one.
Ivan X
@opiejeanne: Tough being an Angels fan in these times, what with their caps and all, innit?
EthylEster
@Van Buren: you are a moron. That is all.
laura
@Ruckus: Sure. We can agree on that. But Lindsay Graham is concerned about the no-knock on that poor Roger Stone feller, because . . . .
schrodingers_cat
@George: I agree with you although I am a life long liberal, with parents who had socialist sympathies when I was growing up.
Van Buren
@EthylEster: Lincoln was capable of growth. Northam may be. You, on the other hand, not so much.
Mnemosyne
@Princess:
You’re surprised that breaking news got more immediate attention than an ongoing story?
thalarctosMaritimus
@opiejeanne: Oscar Wilde says hi.