It started when a picture from his Eastern Virginia Medical School Yearbook surfaced, with a picture on his yearbook page showing one person in blackface and another in a KKK robe and hood. Initially it was not known which of the two individuals was Northam. First Northam said that one of them was him, but couldn't recall which one. Then he changed his story to say that neither was him, he didn't know how that picture got on his page, and by the way, he had once worn blackface in a Michael Jackson dance contest.
There are so many questions, so few coherent answers and Northam is backpedaling so hard that his bicycle is beyond repair.
I think that it's beyond dispute that wearing a KKK robe and hood, unless you're an actor in a movie, is inherently racist. I don't care if it was a "different time", or you didn't know it was racist, or it "was just a joke" or your one black friend supposedly wasn't offended, it's fucking racist! No matter how much you may have changed, or how much you now love black people, at least at that time, in that place, you were a racist.
I'm not sure about blackface. I don't quite get the racism inherent in it. But I don't have to understand it, every black person who I have seen give their opinion on it says that they think it's racist, so that's good enough for me.
The big question for me is whether an attitude that one had in the past (racism, misogyny, homophobia) that one no longer holds, should be held against them now. I'm not saying that any of these attitudes and mindsets should be excused as youthful indiscretions or that "it was a different time". But I wonder whether we should take into account whether someone has truly changed, or if the past will always be with us. For one period in my life, in my words and actions I was a homophobe. I bought into a doctrine that was being taught by the Christian group that I was associated with and pissed off many of my family members because of it. Eventually I shed that religion and with it my anti-gay attitudes. But if I ever run for office that part of my life will likely be used against me. I could say that it's not fair, but as they say, life, and especially politics, isn't fair.
Would it make a difference if aspiring office holders opened up about possible skeletons in their closets? It is impossible to say, but at least the voters of Virginia would have had that information up front and could have made their electoral decision based on facts that they now know about only in retrospect. We know that it doesn't seem to make any difference to Republican voters, Donald Trump got elected despite multiple potential disqualifying attitudes. Steve King is an unapologetic racist, yet he keep getting reelected.
I'm ending this post without having a clear idea what I think should happen to Northam, or whether past transgressions should affect the present. One thing that I am sure of is that Republicans don't have any moral high ground in this discussion and have no business commenting. Democrats at least condemn their own when caught in these circumstances, Republicans deny it or excuse the behavior.
One thing is clear: Governor Northam has lost the confidence of the people who elected him.
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