If a photo of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam wearing a Nazi uniform and making a stiff-armed Hitler salute (instead of the one with two guys, one in blackface and the other wearing a KKK outfit) had appeared in his medical school yearbook it’s a sure bet that the governor’s mansion would have been vacated before sundown the day the article hit the news. As it now stands, the embattled governor currently states that it’s not him in the photo, and, in fact, he apologized for someone else’s racist behavior when the story first broke.
What a great guy. He’ll even apologize for some wicked shit he didn’t do. That takes real courage — or stupidity, take your pick.
Why it took Northam two days (and perhaps conferring with his lawyers who probably said, “Hey, no one can prove that’s you in the photo!”) to realize that in fact he never wore blackface — except for that one time down in Texas when he portrayed Michael Jackson during a talent contest — or donned a KKK getup is reason enough to question his ability to run the affairs of the State of Virginia, or even some small banana republic.
Until Northam pulled the old switcheroo and claimed it wasn’t him, I was toying with the notion of forgiving him for his past racist behavior. I admit I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of forgiving a man for something he did in his mid 20s, rather than if the photo had been taken in his mid-teens. Also, the fact that the photo was in a yearbook from a medical school (as opposed to, say, a law school) gave me pause. Medical school graduates in blackface and wearing a hood? Now that’s some scary shit.
Additionally, the black man, Walt Broadnax, who graduated from medical school with Northam and attempted to exculpate the governor by saying the school would not have allowed him to go to a party in blackface, only made matters worse. Indeed, the school allowed someone to go to a party in blackface (the photo proves it) but worse, it allowed the photo to be published in the yearbook. If the school had such high standards against such racist behavior, then where were the yearbook advisors?
I honestly don’t believe Northam is a racist, at least not at this point in his life, indeed if he ever was one. And even if he happened to be one 30 years ago, I could still see myself forgiving him for harboring such juvenile views. People do grow up. My reason for wanting him to step down is this: Ralph Northam is too dense to be the state dog catcher, let alone the governor of the State of Virginia. A person can outgrow racism, but outgrowing stupidity has yet to be accomplished by anyone, at least that I am aware of.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.