Obviously this is not a legal issue but evidence is thrown out in court regularly due to incorrect procedures of collecting it. One of the benefits of doing so is to not encourage police abuse even though the firm if not vast majority of the physical evidence is legit. (Confessions, not so much.)
What percentage of white males have said or done something racist as a youth that they later regret? More generally, what percentage of Americans have said or done something fill-in-the-blank-ist that they later regret? Is this really such a huge problem that we need to overturn the results of elections for it? Shouldn’t the standard be we grow up and learn to be more thoughtful of others?
This would be like a hardcore gangsta rapper supporting the firing of that guy who used the “n word” in context once or twice. When the people supporting outright racism right now are removed from power by the people supporting them, we can listen to them about people who used to be racists.
*If *Northam had said that’s what he did, he should certainly have received credit for it.
OK, so the timing of this revelation was politically motivated, and my guess was incorrect. I stand corrected on that. But I agree with Riemann that the motives of the revealer ultimately don’t matter: The picture really does exist, it’s (almost certainly) really the governor in the picture, he (almost certainly) was proud enough of the picture to enshrine it as a permanent symbol of himself, and all of that was due to his own decisions, actions, and character. Given all of that, he shouldn’t be governor, and my only regret about the timing is that it’s coming out now (when he can choose not to resign), and not back during the primaries.
I think he tried to show that he has learned to be thoughtful of others. His administration seems to be working against racist policies. He apologized fully for what he thought was the picture (I think he probably didn’t remember the picture correctly before he spoke).
I don’t expect my representatives in government to be perfect. I expect them to effectively enact policies I support. I am totally unsurprised they’ve navigated the same cultural influences I have and came up short of their current aspirations when they were young.
Hate speech or trolling…it took me a a few moments to decide. This is a warning for trolling. If this is what you have left to offer, your stay will be short.
[/moderating]
I’m not sure the analogy is apt, though. The police are in a position of great power, so it’s critically important to ensure that they follow procedure - and we’re sometimes prepared to throw out damning evidence and to free obviously guilty people to ensure that greater good.
It’s not clear to me that a bunch of people motivated by hating you digging around for dirt are in a similar position of power. We’d obviously treat witness testimony with great skepticism under such circumstances, but it’s hard to imagine why physical evidence gathered by people who dislike you should ever be discounted because of how it was uncovered. Even if the yearbook were found by breaking into his home, we’d prosecute the offenders for that, but should we discount the evidence they found concerning his fitness for office?
Again, it’s not just ‘said something bad’. It’s “did something over-the-top offensively bad, like making fun of black people so much you get the nickname ‘Coonman,’ and not saying ‘yeah that was bad, I’ve learned since then’, but ‘oh no, that wasn’t me in the picture’”.
On the one hand, I am of the opinion that many, many people (perhaps even most) say and do things they regret in their youth (even given the extended version of “youth” involved here); god knows there are a few things I said at the time I deeply, deeply regret in retrospect. And people forget that even in 1984 there was a lot of casual racism about that by today’s standards is horrifying (just a fun reminder that the BBC was airing this shitup to 1978, only six years earlier).
On the other hand, it’s not my ox being gored and even by 1984 standards that’s a pretty offensive picture. As already noted, had it been a one-off and Northam had apologized and shown some real contrition and demonstration of personal development, he might have hung on in office. But the “it’s me/it’s not me/I don’t remember” act, combined with the suggestion that this wasn’t remotely a one-off, pushes this into “I was hoping no one would notice” territory rather than it being an error borne of ignorance and naivety.
In short: he’s toast.
I think forgive and forget should be applied here. It’s not like Northam ran on a platform of KKK and blackface. Judge him by who he is now and his actions. I don’t like him for his coziness with Dominion Power and his apparent position on late-term abortions if the birth would be mentally stressful to the mother, but I still don’t think digging up a tasteless photo from 35 years ago is cause for him to resign.
If we forgive former drug addicts and convicted felons, why not an elected official?
Forgiveness is irrelevant, IMO. Virginia needs a governor who can advocate with strong moral authority against white supremacism. I don’t think Northam can do that at this time, and thus he should resign.
My cringeworthy confessions:
When I was a teenager, I was a gothpunkdruid or something. I would sometimes draw lines with eyeliner across my face to represent cracks. Other times, I would crush charcoal in a turtle shell and use it to tint half of my face.
But it gets worse.
One English assignment was to prepare a monologue from the point of view of a character in a text we’d read. I chose the devil from some Hawthorne story, where he was described as “The Black Man of the Wood.”
…
yup.
I coated my face entirely in charcoal and went up before my class and gave my monologue.
After class, my girlfriend refused to acknowledge me, and I was baffled. Finally she hissed, “I am NOT going to talk to you until you wash your face!”
What gets me is that NO ADULT said anything to me about it. Nobody pulled me aside and said, “Dude. DON’T DO THAT!” It took a fellow teenager to check my shit.
It’s among the cringiest moments of an adolescence full of cringes.
BUT I DIDN’T PUT ON GODDAMN KLAN ROBES
What are you saying here - that the Washington Post’s investigation is not to be trusted, because they’re a liberal newspaper?
Does anyone remember Eric Greitens, the Missouri governor who managed to mix personal and campaign indiscretions into a stench that even his own party couldn’t stand? It was just last year.
Anyway, it took four months, a formal impeachment hearing, and a plea bargain to get him to resign. These things can take time.
The point has already been made several times: it’s not all about being “fair” to Northam.
His life isn’t over. He’s not going to jail. He can be forgiven and rehabilitated.
He’s just can’t be rehabilitated as governor. Because that job is not all about him, it’s about what the people of Virginia need from the person who represents their interests in a position of great power.
I dunno. Considering they pitched, greenlit, and distributed a mainstream hollywood movie who’s entire premise was about a guy doing blackface to get into college, two years after this yearbook photo came out, I think it’s really easy to overestimate how “woke” the average person was to this being an egregiously horrible thing in 1984. Granted, I wouldn’t have done this in 1984, but that just wouldn’t have occurred to me at all (I grew up in the northwest and this just would not have likely organically happened - there was maybe one black kid in my graduating class). I remember at the time being horrified that someone used the n-word around me roughly the same period, but I saw Trading Places, Soul Man, and Tropic Thunder, and several other works featuring blackface since then, and if I was terribly offended, I don’t remember it. Tropic Thunder seemed perfectly aware in-universe that black face was offensive and was perfectly content going there “for the lulz” as I’m sure these guys were doing it for halloween (except they weren’t profiting from it). Granted this guy is no ally of mine, and if we’re going to judge everyone’s past by today’s standards than we should go after everyone the same (and I think this guy has handled this terribly). I just think it’s easy to look at the not so distant past and think we were better than we were as a whole. We weren’t.
Fairfax is saying that the Post’s investigation is to be trusted. So the accuser must be mistaken, or lying, or confused. So apparently not all women can be believed when they make these kinds of accusations. Go figure.
Regards,
Shodan
And…?
Having spending a couple of milliseconds figuring, I have figured out that there’s at least some possibility that his enemies are using the reprehensible strategy of appropriating and subverting the valid message of the #MeToo movement.