I’m honestly curious – why are you willing to accept his denial in the Saturday press conference, while discounting his Friday statement, in which he explicitly took responsibility for the picture, and his appearance in it?
On Saturday, he said, “that’s not me there.” If so, why the hell did he say it was him on Friday? If he had doubts that it was him (such as if it was placed by people on the yearbook staff as a joke), I have to believe that it was something he’d known since the yearbook had come out.
If he hadn’t actually yet looked at the picture, and the article, on Friday, why would he have released a statement that clearly said: “a photograph of me” and “the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo”?
Either additional information came to light overnight on Friday night (information which hasn’t been released publicly) which indicated that the picture wasn’t of him, or he decided to switch from an admission to a denial when he realized that it’s nearly impossible to tell if he’s actually in that picture. Either way, he has wound up making two utterly contradictory public statements, with no real explanation as to why.
The punchline in Tropic Thunder is, the white guy in blackface gets smacked upside the head by an African-American and — instead of defending himself — apologizes to the man who understandably just hit him in the face. Said white guy then asks if things are now cool between them; he gets told that, well, no, they’re still not.
So the question is, can you wear blackface if you’re explaining that it’s okay to hit a guy in the face for doing that, where one such hit isn’t enough? And I’m not sure what the answer is, but Downey’s career suggests that it’s a “maybe”.
Plus, if it wasn’t him in the picture, what the heck was it doing on his yearbook page?
I’ve thought about it. I’ll rescind the warning, though somewhat reluctantly. I have my doubts, but given the comments in the ATMB thread and ashai’s posting there, I’ll choose to construe the comment in a more favorable light. Please be more judicious in the future to avoid potential misunderstanding.
[/moderating]
He didnt quite say that. He said “this photo”. Later it appears he was talking about a different photo, with him as Jackson.
Yes, it is confusing and I am not sure at all who is in those pics or why he said what he said, nor am I in any way saying he isnt in that picture.
What I am asking is- if he is NOT in that picture, why should he resign? Answer that.
The scan of his yearbook that we have all seen was all over the press when he made his first statement. Please parse for me your persistent claim that something was “unclear” about which picture he was talking about here:
I want him first to explain why his story changed.
double post
From what others have said, he would have been responsible for the KKK photo on his yearbook page. The KKK is not a joke. They’re a domestic terrorist (and racist) organization. That shows incredibly poor judgment, even if he was not in the photo. It’s one thing to dress up like Hitler, who was a historical figure several decades removed form 1984. The Klan, on the other hand, was still active and holdingrallies in the 1980s.
I don’t live in Virginia but if I did, I would want him to resign. He submitted that picture for his page and it’s disgusting. I think I get why he thought it was funny. Two guys show up for a costume party; one in blackface and one as a klansman. This is hilarious! Let’t have them pose next to each other.
:eek: That totally blows my mind. Hard to comprehend, especially in its latter decade.,
Cosigned.
I think they do have that right, once they are elected (subject to recall or impeachment, of course). That said, I hope he declines to exercise this right, and resigns.
That’s a tough one. My instinct is to say it lands on the acceptable side of the line, in part because its patent offensiveness is lampshaded within the movie, and the idea is supposed to be that he is such an Oscar-seeker, he pushes toward playing roles it’s absurdly inappropriate for him to play. But I may be biased because I really enjoy that movie.
Here’s another cracker, ran from 1972-76. Making a hilarious joke of British racism. It was a popular mainstream show, I remember watching it as a kid, and I don’t remember a hint of controversy at the time (although I might have been too young to pick up on it).
A plausible explanation: Northam has been worrying for years that the ‘blackface impersonation of Michael Jackson’ story would get out. And when the news broke about the yearbook photo, he assumed that the photo was of him, as Jackson, at that dance contest.
The next day he’d remembered that his Jackson costume had looked quite different from what was shown in the photo. That meant that the yearbook photo had NOT been taken at the dance contest. He didn’t remember any other instances of his dressing up in blackface. So the yearbook photo had to have been put on his page by mistake, or as a prank, with the photo being of two other people entirely.
Of course for this theory to be correct, Northam would have to have assumed----on Friday, when he was going on the theory that the photo was from the dance contest----that the dance contest in which he appeared as Michael Jackson contained another contestant who danced in a KKK costume. Which is kind of far-fetched, it would seem to me. Most people would find it to be a problem if Northam willingly posed next to a dance contestant in a KKK hood. So the ‘thought the pic was from the contest’ story doesn’t really help him.
The problem for Northam is that any ‘explanation’ of this still shows that he comes out of a culture of racism–and just accepted it as ‘normal’, back in the day. The only way I could see him surviving is if he has proof that he protested all this casual racism back in the 1980s…and if he had such proof, he’d have produced it by now.
He has to resign. He can’t lead his state, with all this hanging over him.
The picture was all over the press, in every version of the story. It was the entire reason for making a statement. You think it’s plausible he didn’t bother to look at the story and see the yearbook page that was the entire motivation for the story, that was potentially going to end his career?
Was he drunk on methanol, recovering from a cataract operation…?
[quote=“Riemann, post:392, topic:828809”]
Here’s another cracker, ran from 1972-76. Making a hilarious joke of British racism. It was a popular mainstream show, I remember watching it as a kid, and I don’t remember a hint of controversy at the time (although I might have been too young to pick up on it).
[/QUOTE]Isn’t that more along the lines of its contemporary “All in the Family”, which IIRC was based on a British show?
I kinda hope he rides it out. If he’s unfit for office because secretly he’s a big racist jerk, you’d think it would have been apparent at some point in his last ten years of public office.
But what you think isn’t what’s relevant here. You’re asking us what we believe.
You asked whether we thought these guys should be disqualified because of their roles in this film. We say no, because we believe there is a difference. The scene in question clearly has the guy in blackface not to mock African Americans, but to mock racists.
While it’s possible there is such a context to the photo, no one has alleged such. And it was put in a yearbook without including that context, so it was published without that context. So it was not an anti-racist use of blackface.
That said, it would be politically dangerous for anyone who has ever appeared in blackface to run, even if said blackface was in an anti-racist context. There are people who won’t care. And there is no chance that the other party will not use it to attack both the candidate and their party.
There are too many people out there who have never worn blackface to get all that upset about it. We’re not talking about “every single bad decision” here. There are just some things that are beyond the pale. And it’s a problem that become less of an issue as time goes on.
Northam’s medical school stopped publishing yearbooks in 2013 because they were becoming increasingly racist.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/northam-med-school-banned-yearbooks-2013-due-to-racist-photos
As Riemann has already noted, the full text was:
"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."
He explicitly referred to his yearbook page, and the photo of him in costume on that page, in that.
Unless he made that statement without actually looking at that website on Friday (or any of the many other news sites which picked up the story and re-ran the photo), then I don’t see how he could not have already known, when he made that statement on Friday, that the picture in question (which he was admitting was of him) was not of him dressed up as Michael Jackson.
And, if he issued the statement without looking at the picture, then he was clearly in panicky idiot mode.
Neither your link nor what the WaPo article it’s regurgitating say anything about “increasingly racist”. The WaPo article actually specifically mentioned that they hadn’t run a review of past issues when they shut it down.