re: #125 HappyWarrior

Northam was 25 years old. He wasn’t a teenger. He wasn’t even 22. He was 25. I’m sorry but you gotta draw a line and call something socially unacceptable instead of acting like the past is a get out of jail free card. I don’t believe Northam should be ruined over this btw but we do need to have a frank discussion about why blackface and the KKK are so awful. And by going “Oh he was just a kid” or “Hey it was 1984, things were different”, we can never have that conversation candidly.

This is true. However, I think some context is important too. This appears to be a photo of some sort of costume party, like a Halloween party or something. It doesn’t seem to be a KKK gathering. It doesn’t seem to be a gathering for any particular racist cause. I think there’s a difference between having the bad judgement to be an actual white supremacist and having the bad judgement and white blindness to think that dressing that way for a costume party is okay.

The latter isn’t okay either, of course. It reeks of white privilege. It’s even less okay today than it was back then. I think questioning the past judgement of our leaders is valid, but I think some context is necessary.

I definitely didn’t think Al Franken should have resigned. This, I am less sure about. I don’t think Ralph Northam is a secret white supremacist. I think he was a privileged white man in a culture that ignored its racist parts and that he’s done better in the intervening 35 years than many of his peers, but it’s still pretty gross to look at that photo and think of it as a treasured memory, rather than something embarrassing. Again, though, whatever he does and whatever we do, it must be done because it is the right thing and the just thing. It must not be done out of concern for what Republicans, and the Republican mouthpiece that is the US media, will say. What they will say can never be a concern.