I am not writing to excuse Northam’s string of poor choices. In theory he could have been much more effective in his own defense. He could have mused at how naive he was to think attending a costume party with a friend dressed as best friends who are a black man and a klansman was a witty, ironic send-up of racism in America… and how idiotic it was to memorialize it in his med school yearbook.
See! It would have been easy to craft a competing narrative and create a sympathetic backstory, regardless of the truth!
But now he’s off on his own Sanfordesque Appalachian Trail of a narrative, lost in the deep woods of Virginia. (I thru-hiked it myself back in ‘98… it’s no picnic!)
I don’t know if it will be confusing or clarifying, but how the heck do other notable people’s actions in the past potentially bear on this issue? I am simultaneously swayed and not convinced by the argument that it was “a different time.” It is clear the school he attended had a literal culture of blackface, no other way to say it. Many students over decades published similar photos, and surely not every instance made the yearbook.
Or for corroboration as to the pervasiveness of the problem you can look at the boys from the infamous smirking boy video on the mall in Washington. There are photos and videos of his schoolmates painting themselves black, some with apparently minstrel features, and taunting black athletes from other schools. (Their predominant school color is blue.) And that’s TODAY. The struggle is real.
But:
What about Prince Harry of England? He is a beacon for inclusivity today, but at a young age he was photographed at a party in Nazi garb with a beer and a smoke, just weeks before his grandmother, who helped fight the Nazis, was scheduled to appear at a Holocaust remembrance event. The criticism was withering, and questions abounded about what it fortold about the Prince’s character…
How about Joe Biden’s conduct during the Thomas confirmation hearings? He was in charge of the committee, in 1991! Anita Hill was slut-shamed, defamed, and blatantly mischaracterized under his watch. She had “not one ally on the Committee,” and is still waiting for an apology from Biden. He denied her corroborating witnesses and arguably stripped away her dignity as a black woman in the process. Intentionally. He destroyed her character in service to getting Clarence Thomas onto the Supreme Court… kinda a Neocon twofer; racism AND sexism moving up while punching down. How does that past behavior comport with #BLM and #MeToo? Yet “Uncle Joe” is a top contender to run against tRump in two years!
Have we taken anything away from Al Franken’s resignation? Not that holding him accountable wasn’t necessary, but if the process is what’s important: to correct mistakes and move forward better, can we question first and shoot second?
Throughout all of this, there have also been socially acceptable blackface portrayals in popular culture. Tropic Thunder. Soul Man (rich white kid goes to college in blackface to get scholarship.)
I was a stage actor at a pretty off the wall theater in the 90’s. I would probably have declined a role that required such makeup. But I don’t think I would have found it objectionable to be around someone dressed similarly at the time unless they were using the makeup as a means to be flagrantly derogatory. Just trying to be honest. Most guys would likely have dressed that way to make suggestive comments about the size of their “Johnson” with no clue as to any. other. interpretation. And some mawkishness stereotypical behaviors and speech patterns would have been part of the portrayal. Not enjoyable to be around at the time. Not as important as standing tall to the Nazi skinheads at the hardcore shows.
There also may have be a similarity to cross-dressing at play in some cases in the past. People may have made themselves up as another ethnicity out of curiosity and not with a contemptuous intent.
Juvenile behavior of course is not to be rewarded. With my own son, I try to make it about education and understanding when he exhibits it. Today’s “dank memes” that he finds SO entertaining have a LOT of crossover with white power subredditors… there is a huge chance he is laughing at, and sharing, deeply offensive sexist and racist ideas unwittingly. I point it out when I see it happening, and he is glad to know, because he is a very accepting and friendly kid. He knows much less at 13 than I expect him to know at 18, or 25…
But I am rambling. I sincerely want to know why we treat some, but not all decades old warning signs differently from more recent exceedingly bad behaviors, and what we can learn from it.