Governor Ralph Northam and his wife Pam at his strange press conference on February 2nd 2019. (Steve Earley/The Virginian-Pilot)
Ralph Northam (1959- ), the Democratic governor of the southern US state of Virginia since 2018, is in hot water. On Wednesday it was for seeming to support infanticide, on Friday it was for a racist picture:
Northam in 1984 (click to enlarge).
The picture comes from his 1984 yearbook when he was studying to be a doctor at Eastern Virginia Medical School. On his page of the yearbook it shows someone in blackface standing next to someone in a full Klan uniform, white hood and all. The caption that goes with the picture is about Northam. He does not remember which one he was!
Oh, and at Virginia Military Institute he was called “Coonman”.
On Friday February 1st 2019 Governor Northam said:
“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. …
“I recognize that it will take time and serious effort to heal the damage this conduct has caused. I am ready to do that important work. The first step is to offer my sincerest apology and to state my absolute commitment to living up to the expectations Virginians set for me when they elected me to be their Governor.”
That did not silence the calls for his resignation by both Republicans and Democrats, both Black and White.
The next day he called a news conference:
“I am not the person in that photo. … I recognize that many people will find this difficult to believe. … In the hours since I made my statement yesterday, I reflected with my family and classmates from the time and affirmed my conclusion that I am not the person in that photo.”
He now “vividly” believes it was not him in that picture – and expects to be governor of Virginia till 2022.
But Northam did admit to performing in blackface in 1984! He won a talent show as Michael Jackson for his moonwalk. He complained how hard it was to take shoe polish off his face.
No one is coming to his defence.
In 2017, Northam said at his victory speech:
“It was said that the eyes of the nation are now on the commonwealth. Today, Virginians have answered and spoken. Virginians have told us to end the divisiveness, that we will not condone hatred and bigotry, and to end the politics that have torn this country apart.”
He had framed Ed Gillespie, his Republican opponent, as a bigot.
Virginia is where the Charlottesville riot took place in 2017 over a statue of Robert E. Lee. It is also where the state senate in 2019, just last month, paid birthday tributes to Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Confederate generals who fought against the US to defend Black slavery in the Civil War.
Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer:
“And if the Democratic Party can’t stand against someone in blackface or dressed like the Klan, what does it stand for?”
– Abagond, 2019.
Update (February 9th): One week later, Governor Northam still refuses to step down. As it turns out, other high officials in Virginia also have a history of blackface. Justin Fairfax, the Black lieutenant governor, who would take over and does not have a history of blackface, is now sunk in a scandal of his own, with two women accusing him of sexual assault.
Sources: mainly Vox, Politico, Google Images.
See also:
- Ku Klux Klan
- blackface
- coon
- Confederacy
- Charlottesville riot
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Abagond 
We are going to have more of this as we move forward. No one is going to look back, no one is going to attempt to verify, no one is going to do any thing but hound the person out of existence.
It is “our” day and we are going to get rid of any one who was a person who did anything that was not correct.
Any man will soon be afraid for the day some one will accuse him of something he did to a women, shortly women will start being destroyed by others.
No investigation – you are guilty!
Be careful, your day is not far away!
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I don’t know what to think about this. If I think about it – it’s a little unfair to be overly outraged. I have seen Eddie Murphy do his shtick in White face, the Wayans’ did theirs in White Chicks. It was a way to kind of get back at White folks in a comedic way. One can argue it is as a form of entertainment for us and I supposed for Whites its a form of entertainment for them. Neither side may be flattered by it when viewed by each other. I would though, draw the line where it may be used politically and especially in education. I am thinking of a recent event where a teacher in California dressed in black face to demonstrate a historical event for her students. African American teachers do not put on white face to illustrate the white population in history.
Ralph Northam might have changed his sentiments since then, but it clearly isn’t a good political look when you are trying to portray yourself on an ideological platform for your constituents.
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“Shoe polish” on his face while performing at a talent show as Michael Jackson. Yeah, white people had no problem being who and what they were in the 80’s.
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The body language and the expression on the wife’s face as they take their walk of shame. Priceless…
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The fact that this was acceptable in that so called institution of higher learning and this was the college yearbook and nobody found this to be offensive and this was acceptable speaks volumes this is who and what the dominant culture of America was and continues to be. So now in 2019 it’s red MAGA baseball cap wearing fiends instead of white hoods.
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Democrats can be bigots too and laughing my butt off about him calling his Republican opponent a bigot. Well what an example of the pot calling the teakettle black.
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And he is only apologizing because he got caught. He needs to step down and give the job to Justin Fairfax.
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re: dorisjean23
Hi, I read this paragraph a couple times and acknowledge that I am a bit confused. I just want to make sure that I understand your point.
Are you saying that it might be OK to do blackface or whiteface if it is a form of entertainment or for comedic effect, but not OK for political or educational purposes? So, are there cases where it is OK for whites to do blackface if it is entertaining for them, even if blacks would not find it flattering (just as there are cases where it is OK for some blacks to do whiteface for comedic effect even if some whites do not find it flattering?).
Blackface was always done for comedic effect to entertain, all the way back to the mid-1800s. Is the fact that it was for entertainment a mitigating factor in the seriousness of the phenomenon? Doing it for education purposes was probably not an original reason to do blackface, but a recent development. Does the fact that it is a recent development make it somehow worse?
I myself entered my Master’s degree graduate program in Washington, DC in 1984, after living and working in Virginia 1982-1984. I know very well that blackface and KKK costumes at that time were not merely bad taste. They were already exceedingly racist icons in Virginia in 1984 and were widely condemned by all perimeters of the mainstream political spectrum by that time. I don’t think any sector would have found blackface appropriate, even for comedic effect.
But Northam dug himself into a deeper hole by trying to write it off and not owning up to it. He chose to allow that photo on his yearbook page in 1984. Whether it was actually him or not is beside the point. If it was put into the book against his will in 1984, he should have objected then. He did not. He should have owned up to that in 2019. He did not.
Eddie Murphy did yellowface in Norbit (2006). He portrayed a character with a very stereotyped name “Hangten Wong”, obviously for comedic effect. Is it appropriate for black Americans to do yellowface in the 2000s, even for comedic effect?. If so, then would it conversely be appropriate for Asian Americans to do blackface purely for entertainment purposes in the current era? Can you think of any examples where this was done? Would Blacks doing yellowface or Asians doing blackface serve a purpose in contemporary society (eg, for pure entertainment) that would avoid doing more damage than good?
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I have to agree with Allen Shaw on this one. Lincoln was a white supremacist, but he wound up ending slavery. LBJ virtually had to go through shock therapy not to say the n-word in public. You go back 30 years (if you can) and it’s hard to find anybody who can cast the first stone. I’m more interested in what his policies are now. BTW, a “classy,” extremely well-educated bigot like Wm. F. Buckley was never caught doing anything racist in public. Should he get a pass?
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If there is any sort of moral equivalence between blackface and whiteface, the ratio is at least 10 to 1, if not 100 to 1. “Black Chicks” by White comedians would be horrifying and not at all on the same level as “White Chicks”, as questionable as it was.
It is like saying a battered wife is “just as bad” for hitting her violently abusive husband. Even she should avoid violence if at all possible, of course, but to put it on the same level as her husband’s violence is sickening. Sickening.
Or it is like saying Native Americans were “just as bad” for using violence to defend their homelands as White Americans were for taking their land by force.
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@ Mary
Right, it was not just Northam, but the yearbook committee and the school. His was not the only case of blackface, so it was not just, oops, some kind of accident.
On top of that, it was a med school!!! Many of their graduates will have to treat Black people.
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@Abagond: My thoughts exactly this is a medical school and they are now practicing physicians that to me was very disturbing.
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About this having happened in medical school, it also brings up the issue of age. He was not a teenager when he did this but more like 25, definitely old enough to know better and be aware of possible repercussions.
But it seems to have been acceptable behavior at the school and there were no negative repercussions until now, 35 years later, which says volumes about the ingrained prejudices and institutionalized racism at his medical school during that time.
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Is anyone else inured and calloused to most of this? Northam should face the appropriate consequences but I can’t even be outraged anymore on an emotional level. It’s not surrender or hopelessness, it’s inoculation. If your body is exposed to a certain pathogen frequently you can develop an immunity. If you take recreational drugs, the impact of the high never equals the first use. It’s adaptation.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. It’s a sign of losing hope of the kind MLK had when he thought that a white consciousness could be roused by the sight of protestors’ violent abuse for non-violent civil disobedience. I don’t feel “shocked” by it (or Ertel’s blackface as a Katrina survivor). You aren’t surprised when a mosquito bites you; you’ve seen them do it many times.
This is actually a “problem” because black people have become harder to manipulate as a collective. Trump’s election was a clue and the open skepticism surrounding candidates Harris and Booker is another. Even with the racist bogeyman running in 2016, black voter turnout actually fell in a presidential election for the first time in 20 years. Though voter suppression could have played a role, Harris and Booker will be facing a much tougher audience in 2020 than Obama did in 2008. There is a growing wind of cynicism and a sense of wanting to divest from systems that aren’t working. It’s no surprise that there were tons of ads begging people to VOTE in the midterm elections without even asking them to vote FOR this or that person.
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Whiteface is not equivalent to blackface even though faces are being painted in both cases. Drawing a swastika and a “+” sign are not equivalent even though they are both pairs of lines meeting at right angles. As with anything, context is fundamental.
There is actually nothing inherently objectionable about the swastika (which had pre-nazi uses) dressing in sheets like a ghost or painting your face. It is the context of the symbols, from which they get their meaning and their power to communicate, that makes them objectionable.
False equivalences abound concerning acts that are deemed racist because people (esp. whites) conveniently forget that racism sets up an unequal situation. Just as the law does not treat the self-defender and the aggressor the same even though they may both hit each other, you can’t extract social situations from their racist context and then claim they are the same because of surface similarities.
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@jeje – Hi, no – I’m not saying it might be okay to do white face or black face on any occasion. It’s just a social observation I’m taking note of. A lot of outrage is going on about black face in the media in recently, and I mentioned the
few times I’ve seen white face done – and only a few times by black actors. It was more of a cautionary thing that might be thrown back in our faces, even though we don’t do this on the regular. As far as education, I have mentioned African American educators do not parade in white face to illustrate historical moments. It’s not necessary. Young people get it, they do not need to see a teacher costume himself or herself in a skin color that is not natural for them to understand the story – if it’s that important then persuade African American teachers to illustrate the point. (In which case, they would probably put them in the proper perspective.)
As far as the entertainment arena goes – well they are always doing all kinds of stuff. Like Robert Downey Jr. doing black face in “Tropic Thunder” – with the current climate – I don’t think any of that is gonna go down anytime soon if ever again: its archaic.
Politicians and educators? No. That’s a whole genre that needs not to go down. People expect them to act like they got some sense (even though they have NOT been showing any lately.)
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Jefe, I apologize for the misspelling of your name. I know who you are dear friend.
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dorisjean23,
I am not trying to challenge you. I am just wondering if anyone doing blackface (and also yellowface, and perhaps (who knows) doing whiteface) today could have consequences in 2050. Who knows how people then will look back on the 2010s.
If Robert Downey Jr decided to run for public office or become an educator in 2020, are his previous episodes of blackface going to get him into trouble? or Eddie Murphy’s prior attempts at whiteface (and especially yellowface)? or do they get a pass because before it was for entertainment before they presumably become politicians or educators?
Blackface (and often yellowface, although there are different separate reasons behind that) has always been done for comedic effect and entertainment purposes. It doesn’t mean that we can give US history a pass on this.
My take on Northam: by posting blackface and KKK costumes on his yearbook page, it is undeniable that he was connected to the issue whether it was actually him or not (this would be like putting it on your website or an undeletable facebook page today). In 1984, it was already unacceptable to do that behaviour. Yet he allowed it, the school allowed it, nobody objected at that time. But, that was BEFORE he became a politician, and presumably done for entertainment or comedic effect (at the time).
In fact, I think after it was discovered and spread throughout the media, he still had a chance to salvage his gubernatorial post, but he said the wrong things and put his foot into his mouth. BAD MOVE.
He could have done something like this:
– admit he did it (approved to have that yearbook page at that time).
– could claim that he doesn’t think it was actually him, but at least admit and own up to the fact that he had it posted in his yearbook, ie, own up to it.
– do not try to wriggle out of it by trying to claim it was not him
– do not openly admit to other episodes of blackface (WHAT WAS THAT!)
Then he should admit that in 1984, he was already an adult and should have known better. Even someone who grew up in a rural area on the Virginia eastern shore should have known by then. But, prior to 1984, he could theoretically claim had had little contact with the civil rights movement, affirmative action, desegregation, etc. and was even ignorant of his family’s slave-owning past and about landmark acts of legislation like the Virginia Racial Integrity act of 1924, or about people like Walter Plecking or Mildred Loving. Later he did become educated in these matters by the time he entered public office. By the time he did that, he regrets some of the things he did in his young adult years, but unlike today, we cannot delete those pages of his past like you can delete facebook and twitter pages today.
Admit that he has learned about his own family’s slave-owning past, and as a descendant of that era, he recognizes the implications that that affords him and his family today.
Do not deny it, for pete’s sake. Own up to it.
Admit all the lessons he has learned in the intervening years, and his record shows that he has consistently supported the concerns of all Virginia citizens, including the ones who have been oppressed, or whose ancestors had been oppressed in the past. He is committed to righting these wrongs, including the ones he himself had perpetrated.
There was a teachable moment he could have shared with Virginia and the country and he muffed it all up.
Instead, he simply denied it, and admitted to something else also not good. Gee Whiz, shoe polish is hard to wipe off?
I know you personally have recent African, European, Chinese and Native American ancestry – this is all part of being American and we cannot be fully responsible for everything our ancestors did. Even myself, I could have one great grandfather murdered during the Chinese expulsion era, and another one who had driven off Cherokees off land he seized in NW Georgia during the Trail of Tears, and another who had flogged a black slave. If I find out these things, I admit them, and use them as lessons to govern my life today.
But, to deny, and cover up (badly) — this is not what you do.
He needs to go now. He is not dong the residents of Virginia any good by keeping up this charade.
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“This will take some time”
AKA he dont give 2 damns. This is always used as a euphemism against black folks. Taking time means ALL the time in the world, just enough time to be distracted by something else in the hopes that people will forget about ol’ Ralph.
How do you not know what’s in your yearbook after all this time? Never bothered showing it off to family or friends who were curious about your background?
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@ Jefe
This is not meant in any way to exonerate Northam, but in my experience students were not asked to give approval or permission of what went into the yearbook as representing them. Yearbook staff and their faculty advisor had complete control, and at least at my school, the student staff were able to put embarrassing photos of people they didn’t like in the yearbook without the advisor noticing or caring. The rest of the school didn’t find out what had been done until the yearbook had already been printed and distributed.
Was it different elsewhere? I never had a yearbook where people got their own individual page, like Northam’s here (or Brett Kavanaugh’s). Is the content for those individual pages submitted by each student, or is it devised by yearbook staff?
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The Virginia Military Institute is a Custis Trail walk or bike away within 20 minutes from where I’m at. “Coonman”? Really?
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Alternative campus location?
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Liam Nelson is next!
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@solitaire
I think in secondary school and undergraduate college, there is probably little if any control that a student has over how he is depicted in a yearbook. I was on a yearbook staff one year, and indeed we selected photos and made captions without consulting each student.
But in the Eastern Virginia Medical college case, each student has his own page. And apparently the caption to the photo is his (surely he must have known what photo he was writing a caption for). So, I suspect that in that yearbook, he would have more control. Besides, even if he did not, he could have made a big hullabaloo over the page, and if he did, he would have remembered that.
But apparently his page was not the only one with blackface. Others in his yearbook also had photos that would have been off limits, even in 1984.
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@ jefe
Thank you for the explanation. That makes sense.
I’m not quite sure about the caption, or what is called a “quote” on the page. It seems like a quote he was known for saying, or perhaps he even provided it to the yearbook for use on his page. But I’m not sure the quote was necessarily meant as a caption for that specific photo, as it only refers to drunks and doctors.
BUT as you said, he obviously didn’t object to what was done on his yearbook page, whether he had control over it or not, or he would have remembered that all these years later. In fact, I think that makes it less likely he’s telling the truth about not being either person in that photo. Because even if back in 1984 he didn’t see anything wrong with the inherent racism of the photo, you’d think he would’ve been upset that the yearbook staff put a photo of some other dudes on what was supposed to be his page.
Instead, he admitted to performing in blackface at a different event that year. It’s obvious that he didn’t see anything wrong with that back then, and so he most probably is one of the guys in the photo.
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wow, liam neeson, it puts his role in ‘widows’ in a whole new context
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this guy though, wow, unreal!
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it was him, then it wasn’t, he doesn’t remember, gtfo!
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Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, is accused of sexual assault. After him, the next person in the line of succession is the state’s attorney general, Mark Herring. Herring has just revealed that he wore blackface in the eighties too! He and his friends went to a college party dressed as rappers.
Herring stated, “Because of our ignorance and glib attitudes – and because we did not have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others – we dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup. This was a one-time occurrence and I accept full responsibility for my conduct.”
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@ Paige
SMH
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The state of Virginia is just a hot mess. Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by two women and the Attorney General has admitted his black face shenanigans.
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Well, it seems as if they have a bunch of skeletons in their closets BUT is it really a coincidence that all of this is coming out at once? Virginia is an important swing state, after all, which is currently controlled by Democrats. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some political maneuvering as well.
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I think AG Herring came out before any investigation just to stop the chorus demanding resignations. By coming out when he did, then he raises the spectre that if they demand the governor and Lt. governor to resign, then they would have to ask the Attorney General to resign too. And the Speaker of the House of delegates is a Republican and was chosen by a random draw. It would draw the legitimacy of the entire Virginia State government into danger as well as a severe constitutional crisis.
By Herring coming out, they might be able to salvage all their posts, as the alternative, having them all resign in synchrony, might be more problematic. However, to restore a sense of legitimacy, they might have to push through a law to reduce the tension and respond to their mandate of their election in the ashes of Charlottesville. As James Comey suggested, one thing they could do is remove all the confederate war battle hero monuments across the state. Baltimore has already removed theirs. Some of these monuments are right in the suburbs of Washington, DC (eg, Stonewall Jackson in the Manassas Battlefield). Another thing they could do is repeal the Lee-Jackson Memorial day which the Lt. governor sat out.
In fact, there are loads of things that Virginia can do to rectify parts of its racist past that have never been corrected.
James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html
By the way, do we have a photo of Herring’s blackface?
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