In the early to mid-century, there was a fictional character named “Jim Crow.”
Jim Crow and other performances featuring white men in blackface captivated white crowds up until the mid-20th century.
Now blackface is back in the spotlight after a photograph emerged Friday from Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook page. It shows one man in blackface standing beside another figure in a Ku Klux Klan robe.
Note: This does make the Northam ads against Gillespie that showed minority kids getting run down by a dude in a truck with a confederate flag seem kind of rich.
While blackface is considered “clearly racist” now, it was once celebrated.
Of course, Liberals do this all the time, and it’s considered funny.
Northam is claiming that while he did once use blackface to dress up as Michael Jackson (can he can still do the moonwalk?), he is not the one in the yearbook picture, “When my staff showed me the photo in question yesterday, I was seeing it for the first time. I did not purchase the EVMS yearbook and I was unaware of what was on my page” –Governor Northam.
So, he essentially apologized Friday for not being in the picture? What?
The problem for Ralph is that his party and the idiot progressive left has dog-whistled racism at every turn, and there is so much egg on their face, they may have to have his head. Just this week, the moronic team of CNN’s Andrew Cuomo and Don Lemon said that MAGA hats are a symbol of racism. Megyn Kelly had to resign just mentioning that dressing up for Halloween in blackface was okay. The Florida
Ralph Northam’s governorship is experiencing a post-election abortion, but after his fellow Dems set him aside, they will “make him comfortable” and “have a conversation” to decide how they will kill his political career.— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) February 2, 2019
I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for thehurt that decision caused then and now,” he said. “This behavior is not in keeping with who I am today and the values I have fought for throughout my career in the military, in medicine, and in public service. But I want to be clear, I understand how this decision shakes Virginians’ faith in that commitment. – Ralph Northam
Late Friday, calls for his resignation began to come in, including former governor Terry McAuliffe (D), state Senate and House Democrats, Virginia’s legislative Black Caucus and Planned Parenthood.
The clown show of national Democratic hopefuls also weighed in—pressure built from
Living on the Shore, I have met Mr. Northam many times at everything from town halls to oyster roasts, and while I disagree with him on policy, he is as far away from being a racist as anyone that I know. The photo is 30 years old, and while offensive to sensitive current progressive eyes weaned on the premise of constant wussification, identity politics, it is really just kind of goofy. Southern white boys get the irony and joke, sorry.
What is more troubling is the question of why this is only coming out now. Who was holding this? Certainly, running for State Senator and eventually Lieutenant Governor, it would have appeared during those campaigns. Why now? Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax is far more progressive, more pro-abortion, and more indebted to Planned Parenthood, so for Liberals, even if Northam is ousted, it’s still a win. If Republican Jill Vogel had won, odds on the photo probably would never have surfaced.
The cruel reality is that Northam will find that his so-called friends in the Democratic party are nothing but a bunch of back-stabbing, illiterate weasels who will throw him under the bus as fast a possible, hoping the stain won’t stick to them. He will get to feel what it is like to be a white, male conservative in Liberal America, and will have to endure the inane and vapid slings and arrows of the American Progressive Left.
While the Mirror has issues with some of the Governor’s policies, it also understands that in reality, he hasn’t broken any laws (unlike Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton
The Republicans and fearful Democrats will pounce, but Northam should not resign over this. He should give the double-Bronx salute, and let them try and impeach.
This can only occur if offense against the Commonwealth occurs by malfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty, or other high crime or misdemeanor.
So it goes.
Paul Plante says
Welcome back, my friends
To the show that never ends
We’re so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside
There behind a glass
Stands a real picture from long ago of somebody who may or may be Virginia governor Ralph Northam
Be careful as you pass
Move along! Move along
Come inside, the show’s about to start
Guaranteed to blow your head apart
Rest assured you’ll get your money’s worth
The greatest show in Heaven, Hell, or Earth
You’ve got to see the show, it’s a dynamo
You’ve got to see the show, it’s rock and roll
Right before your eyes
You’ve got to see the show, it’s a dynamo
You’ve got to see the show, it’s rock and roll
Soon the Gypsy Queen Hillary Clinton
In a glaze of Vaseline
Will perform on guillotine
What a scene! What a scene
Next upon the stand
Will you please extend a hand
To Virginia governor Ralph Northam’s Ragtime Band
Dixieland, Dixieland
Roll up! Roll up! Roll up
See the show
Performing on a stool
We’ve a sight to make you drool
Seven virgins and a mule
Keep it cool. Keep it cool
We would like it to be known
The exhibits that were shown
Were exclusively our own
All our own. All our own
Come and see the show
Come and see the show
Come and see the show
See the show
See the show
With apologies to Emerson, Lake &Palmer!
How surreal this all is, but hey, it’s America!
Jonny says
Well said. I agree. Altho I disagree with Gov. Northam politics, I truly feel he is now feeling the ugly bullying of what politics has become.
Paul Plante says
American politics has had ugly bullying right from the get-go, Jonny, from back when George Washington was president and Tommy Jefferson and John Adams were contending for the office, so this is nothing new, at all.
Up here where I am, in the corrupt third-world ****-hole of New York which Ralph Northam is trying to re-create in Virginia, politics is considered a no-holds-barred, blood sport, and so the game is played.
So again, what Northam is being put through here is not at all anything new.
What might make this different in some regards is all the voices piling on as they also did in the case of Tony Wiener, including Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who released a statement that said Northam no longer has the public trust and should step down, to wit:
“His past actions are completely antithetical to everything the Democratic Party stands for,” Perez said.
end quotes
Now, Jonny, talk about someone telling us a huge WHOPPER, there’s classic case of it right there coming from out the mouth of this Tom Lopez, the Democrat party mouthpiece, given that the Democrat party is the party of slavery here in America, the party that seceded from our Republic so it could have its own country where slavery was allowed, and the party that gave the black folks “Jim Crow” and terror gangs like the Red Shirts of the Southern United States which were white terrorist groups that were active in the late 19th century after the end of the Reconstruction era of the United States.
The Red Shirts first appeared in Mississippi in 1875, when Democratic Party private terror units adopted red shirts to make themselves more visible and threatening to Southern Republicans, both white and freedmen.
The Red Shirts were one of several paramilitary organizations, such as the White League in Louisiana, arising in the continuing efforts of white Democrats to regain political power in the South in the 1870s.
These groups acted as “the military arm of the Democratic Party.”
While sometimes engaging in violence, the Red Shirts, the White League and similar groups in the late nineteenth century worked openly and were better organized than the secret vigilante groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
They had one goal: the restoration of the Democrats to power by getting rid of Republicans, which usually meant repressing civil rights and voting by the freedmen.
During the 1876, 1898 and 1900 campaigns in North Carolina, the Red Shirts played prominent roles in intimidating non-Democratic voters.
So there is what the Democrat party has stood for in our history, which makes it a mystery how Tom Perez thinks Ralph Northam is doing anything different from that, even assuming that it is he in the offending photo, and not somebody else, which takes us back to that Washington Post article as follows:
Two classmates of Northam’s at Eastern Virginia Medical School said Saturday that they had never seen him in costumes like those that appear in the photo on his yearbook page.
However, they were at a loss to explain how a mix-up might have occurred that would result in the racist image being placed on his page in error, because students were responsible for submitting their own photos.
Tobin Naidorf, who also graduated in 1984 and is now a gastroenterologist in Alexandria, said he did not recall the exact procedure for submitting photos to the yearbook staff.
However, he said he was the only person who could have submitted the family photos that appeared on his own page.
Walter G. Broadnax, Jr.’s page in the Eastern Virginia yearbook included a photo of his deceased grandmother beneath the heading “These are the people who have helped keep the dream alive.”
“Pictures as close as that, I would have had to have chosen those.”
“I can’t speak for Ralph, though,” said Broadnax, whose entry also included a favorite Langston Hughes poem.
He doesn’t remember how the yearbook was created or even seeing it once it was published.
Pamela Kopelove, who is credited in the yearbook as its editor, did not respond to repeated calls for comment.
end quotes
As I said above here, this **** is simply surreal!
Jonny says
BTW…I don’t want him to resign. NY & CA should not be dictating our political leaders.
Christopher says
If people are calling for the resignation of Northam because of the photo from many years ago, why not an equal or greater call for the resignation of our president who has more than once expressed his disdain for nonwhite people.
A friend says
“president who has more than once expressed his disdain for nonwhite people.”
Really(?), show the reliable documented proof of your accusation.
P.S. Northam is TOAST!
Paul Plante says
How tedious this all gets, who has “disdain” for non-white people versus who doesn’t, as we can see from this excerpt from p.654 of “The Coldest Winter” by David Halberstam, as follows:
In 1964, as Johnson edged closer to the final decision on the war, there were three factors that tended to make him hawkish.
end quotes
Now, for those too young to remember, Lyndon Baines Johnson was a DEMOCRAT!
Getting back to Halberstam:
The first was the nature of the man himself, his own image of himself, the need to stand tall, not to back off when he was challenged, and to personalize all confrontations and to see them as a test of manhood.
end quotes
Sounds like what people say about Trump, does it not?
Getting back to Halberstam:
Pierre Salinger’s job, Johnson told the principal Kennedy press officer when he first became president, was to sell Johnson as a big Texan who was both tall and tough in the saddle.
The second factor was an innate, almost unconscious American racism, the kind that had bedeviled so many officers in the field at the beginning of the Korean War, the notion that because Asians were smaller and from a lesser part of the world with lesser industrial and technological accomplishments, they were a lesser people and could not stand up to American technology and American troops.
end quotes
As an aside, although after all these years gone by with no answer forthcoming, I don’t expect one now, why is it alright for a Democrat to be a blatant racist, while nobody else can be one?
And more to the point of this exercise, why was it alright for LBJ, a political father-figure in all likelihood to Democrat Ralph Northam, to be a blatant racist, but it is not alright for the political acolyte to follow in his footsteps?
Getting back to Halberstam, we have as follows:
Vietnam, when Johnson spoke about it at NSC meetings, was often “a raggedy ass little forth rate country.”
end quotes
If Trump was to say something like that today, how the Democrat mob would howl, shriek, scream, moan and gibber, which takes us back to Halberstam as follows:
On occasion, like Ned Almond (in Korea referring to the Chinese), he used the word “laundrymen” to describe the combatants.
Sometimes too, as he came close to the final decision on whether to send combat troops to Vietnam, Johnson’s racism showed in the way he spoke of the Vietnamese as being like Mexicans, the kind of lesser people you had to show some strength to before they got the message and gave you the respect you deserved.
The Vietnamese, he would say, were not going to push Lyndon Johnson around, because he knew something about people like this, because back home he had dealt with people just like them, the Mexicans.
Now, Mexicans were alright if you let them know who was boss, but “if you didn’t watch they’ll come right into your yard and take it over if you let them.”
“And the next day they’ll be right there on your porch, barefoot and weighing one hundred and thirty pounds, and they’ll take that too.”
“But if you say to ’em right at the start, ‘Hold on, just wait a minute,’ they’ll know they were dealing with someone who’ll stand up.”
“And after that you can get along fine.”
end quotes
As an aside, I wonder if ol’ LBJ came up with those classic Democrat lines on his own or if they were really Pierre Salinger’s, but there is a question we will likely never know the answer to now, is my thought.
So it is alright for Democrat LBJ to have been a racist, and it is alright for Democrat Ralph Northam to advocate the killing of babies, but it is not alright for Ralph Northam to have a picture of a dude with his face smeared up with shoe polish on his medical school yearbook page.
Who is it that thinks all those rules up in the first place, I wonder.
Maybe some Democrats out there could do us all a great big favor and come in here and explain all of that to us.
Paul Plante says
There’s a whole lot of things going on here, Christopher.
This is like being alive in Rome during the reign of Caligula, or Nero – totally strange things going on, alright, and this latest business with Ralph Northam just about takes the cake, given what I am reading about it in the Washington Post article “‘The picture’s not me’: Va. Gov. Northam refuses to step down, despite flood of calls for his resignation for ‘racist and offensive’ photo” by Laura Vozzella and Gregory S. Schneider on 2 February 2019, which incidentally is a developing story and that will be updated, as you would expect of a ripe, juicy political drama like this one is, something that writes itself so the members of the press don’t have to do anything more than write it down as it comes at them, and then hope that people believe it and take any of it seriously.
First of all, Christopher, go back up and take a close look at the “offending” photograph and tell us what you honestly see.
The supposed Klucker in the photo looks like a cardboard cut-out caricature of a Klucker, and the black-face dude is smirking about something.
So who is getting offended by that, and what exactly is it that they are getting upset about?
I think it is GOOFY!
And WTF was it doing in a MEDICAL SCHOOL yearbook in the first place?
What the hell kind of medical school would want a picture of a couple of GOOFBALLS in its yearbook as an advertisement of the kind of medical talent they are turning out?
Like something out of a John Candy/John Belushi movie, isn’t it?
And let me say that I still remember when Amos and Andy was a very popular radio and TV series here in America, and yes, the TV version featured real black people, not white dude wannabees wearing shoepolish, and there was no hue and cry about that as there is now, over this faux black dude in a medical school yearbook.
In fact, this whole thing is something you would expect to be reading about in National Lampoon, not the Washington Post, or you would expect it to be a Mel Brooks movie or something you would see on Monty Python, it is so bizarre, as we see from the Washington Post narrative, as follows:
Joan Naidorf, whose husband’s yearbook page is opposite Northam’s in the yearbook, said she was surprised the photos are only now coming out, given Northam’s stature in Virginia politics.
“We’ve often wondered over the last 10 years or so why someone didn’t dig this up sooner,” said Naidorf, a nonpracticing emergency room physician who lives in Alexandria.
end quotes
Are you following that, Christopher?
The picture was never hidden – people have always known about it, and never before this did anyone have a problem with it.
“Hey, it’s no big deal!”
Getting back to the Washington Post narrative, it continues as follows concerning who knew of the picture, and when did they know it:
She said when she first saw the photo, shortly after the yearbook was published, “I thought: ‘That’s awful.’”
“I assumed it was something at a drunken frat party.”
She said she didn’t know when or where the photos were taken.
Her husband, Tobin, wasn’t available Friday.
He met Northam a few times when they worked medical rotations together but weren’t friends, Joan Naidorf said.
Eastern Virginia Medical School allowed students to pick their own photos for their yearbook page, Naidorf said.
Her husband chose their engagement photo and other personal pictures.
Another student chose a picture of men in blackface and dressed as women in what appears to be a variety-show routine.
end quotes
So what is up with any of that, do you think, Christopher?
And how is it that after all this time of that same photo being part of the public record, always easily available to anyone wishing to do even basic research on Ralph Northam, which would include his yearbooks, somebody makes a big deal of it now?
As to how the photo controversy started, here is what the Washington Post narrative tells us, to wit:
The yearbook image was first posted Friday by the website Big League Politics, a conservative outlet founded by Patrick Howley, a former writer for the Daily Caller and Breitbart.
The Washington Post independently confirmed the authenticity of the yearbook by viewing it in the medical school library in Norfolk.
end quotes
You see that, Christopher – it was never hidden, so why now?
And that answer is in the Washington Post, as follows:
The revelation comes after a wild week for Northam, who was accused by Republicans of advocating infanticide after he made comments defending a bill that would have lifted restrictions on late-term abortions.
end quotes
The Northam dude was advocating killing babies in Virginia, which the Democrats had npo problem with, and now those same Democrats want Northam gone because of that photo they have known about all along.
Is that hypocrisy, or what?
It’s moral to kill babies, but immoral to wear black shoe-polish on your face to look like an A-HOLE in a medical-school yearbook, which existential question takes us to this gem from the Washington Post narrative, as follows:
Bob Holsworth, a veteran analyst of Virginia politics, the photo could change state politics.
“He would have never received the Democratic nomination if this photo had been exposed early enough in the campaign against Tom Perriello,” he said.
“While it was a long time ago, we still have to remember it was 1985.”
“Not 1955 or 1935.”
“Plus it was a medical school yearbook.”
“Someone going out and ministering to people of all races and creeds.”
“It certainly damages his perception,” Holsworth said.
“The question is: What does it say about his capacity to remain in office?”
end quotes
What damages his perception is the fact that he wants to allow the killing of babies, not whether he was stupid enough years ago to daub himself up with black shoe polish to smile at the camera, even assuming it was him in the first place, as opposed to someone else entirely.
Someone advocating the killing of babies in imitation of New York state’s Young Andy Cuomo is hardly to be seen as someone going out and ministering to people of all races and creeds. unless you want to consider killing babies to be some sort of “ministering.”
So you see how bizarre this is all getting, Christopher?
Plenty so, is it not?
Jack Trump says
I’m not gonna bother to defend or accuse Northam. He lives by the sword so he dies by the sword. He’s part of the p.c. crowd and the democrat party. They kill babies and eat their own. He could have taken a diferent path, and chose not to. To me it’s all part of their growing agenda that I see, and the play they are putting on for us.
Democrats, the p.c. crowd, liberals in general, and hollywood liberals all make me laugh at their, what I think, is total two faced nonsense. All the dancing and posturing they are performing trying to protect the democrat party and the Clintons is amazing. I believe/hope it will all come out in the long run, and we will see what happens.
Today is a perect example. They want to fry northam for what he did many years ago, and I have to endure the commercials on t.v. tooday laughing in my face. Waiting for the Super Bowl to come on and I see a great Hollywood liberal pushing some bank. Samuel Jackson. His loud mouth about this n that and how insensitive and cruel white people are has been screaming to be heard for a long time. Today, in a big time commercial, and screaming in my face, (that’s how I feel) he tells a white man that he “is simple”. He covers his tracks by then saying he is smart too. Am I sensitive ? Should I SCREAM the race card and call the bank and Jackson a bigot ? Or, as an intelligent white Irish Catholic independent thinker, should I smirk at the nonsense and just change the channel ? The latter is what I think Mr. Northam done a long time ago. Not him. he jumped on board. His further political aspirations got him. So be it.
In the meantime folks, I have yet to tell you the real subject of this comment. I wrote the other day and said it’s all about the benjamins, Mr. Northam falling on his sword and pushing the liberal agenda more forward. Wait for it……..
In my opinion dems have beem sitting on this Northam story for a long time. They decided this is the time to bring it out. Northam brings out the abortion story and falls on his sword. Many Americans are horrified at the idea, and the dems knew we would be. So they quiet that, and then bring out this photo story and will soon drive a stake through the governors heart. His wife supports him,as does his pastor, but in the long run dems prove their desire to unite and move forward. It’s all easy to do to an E.s. out of mainstream richmond guy anyway. and he resigns. What a docudrama…….
All the dems push for Ralphs resignation. they paint him into a corner. Even Planned Parenthood comes out and condemns him. as if they have morals. Me ? I’m LMAO at all this.
Planed Parenthood keeps trying to look like good folks while they harvest ste cells from fetuses. the more abortions we perform, the more stem cells the get and cell to med companies, and they take the $ and donate it to democrats. Ho hum. Anybody paying attention yet ?
The agenda gets further pushed. Gee, what a surprise, the country now gets a new black governor. Is this a win, win, win for libs and dems ?
Wait for it……..Ralph will emerge at some post somewhere and probably making more $ than as a governor. With all the $millions the Clinton Foundation now has that disappeared from there, they can easily reward him with a cushy job somewhere.
Skirt the law, help Russians buy uranium that they sell to the middle east, they reward Ms. Clinton wiith $millions. Barack got his cut, and now, through McCauliffe, (Hillary’s buddy) Northam will get his.
And the press riles people up over a KKK/blackface photo. it’s called a smokescreen folks and they threw the Trump/Russian hoax in your face early to really distract you.
God Bless America. Do yourselves a favor. relax, laugh and watch the game. You can’t affect it. I think my namesake is trying but it’s hard to hold back tide.
My GUESS ? Patriots 33 and Rambos 27. It’s hard to not pick the Patriots.
Paul Plante says
Politics, Jack, is a for-profit bidness in America, so of course, this Northam kerfuffle is about money, which point of yours was confirmed by none other than the New York Times in the article “Northam Clings to Office in Virginia, Risking Democrats’ Ambitions” by Alan Blinder on 3 February 2019, where we received this update on the condition of governor Northam, as follows:
Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia had a fragile, defiant hold on power on Sunday as he and a quickly eroding coalition of allies rebuffed demands for his resignation after the revelation of a racist photograph on his medical school yearbook page.
Mr. Northam’s hopes for political survival, Democratic and Republicans officials increasingly believe, are a mounting humiliation for the state, and risk his fellow Democrats’ policy ambitions and their aspirations for crucial state elections this year, when all 140 legislative seats will be at stake.
Democrats fear that if Mr. Northam remains, he will prove a drag on the party’s fund-raising and jeopardize its efforts to persuade voters in a year when control of both legislative chambers is expected to be bitterly and closely contested.
end quotes
Ah, yes, Jack – do not, above all else in politics today, do not disturb or upset in any way the MONEY MACHINE that brings money into the party coffers, because it is about party before country when you are a party hack, which the Democrats clearly think Northam is.
As to his future if he doesn’t resign, the New York Times continued as follows:
It is not clear how legislators and other state leaders, like Attorney General Mark R. Herring, will proceed if Mr. Northam continues to insist on staying in office.
Scholars and Virginia officials have been studying the State Constitution and its provisions to oust a sitting governor.
Virginia’s Constitution allows the impeachments of governors for “offending against the Commonwealth by malfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty or other high crime or misdemeanor.”
If Mr. Northam chooses to remain in office and legislators ultimately seek his impeachment, the House of Delegates would be the first legislative chamber to consider the matter.
The Senate would conduct any subsequent trial and determine whether Mr. Northam kept power.
The Virginia Constitution also offers a second, equally disruptive mechanism that is similar to the United States Constitution’s 25th Amendment.
In Virginia, a triumvirate of officials — the attorney general, the speaker of the House of Delegates and the president pro tempore of the Senate — may conclude that a governor is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
In such an instance, which can also be prompted by a majority of the Legislature, the lieutenant governor becomes the acting governor.
Mr. McAuliffe said he did not anticipate there would be any proceedings like impeachment.
“I know Ralph very well,” he said.
“It will not come to that.”
“And if Ralph is watching this today, I know how much he loves this Commonwealth of Virginia, and you’ve got to make the right decision.”
“You’ve got to make the right moral decision.”
end quotes
The right moral decision, Jack – here you have a dude who was moral enough to propose killing babies like Democratic Socialist governor of New York Young Andy Cuomo, so now, the candid world is watching and waiting with bated breath to see if the dude is going to be moral enough to resign under pressure because on his page in a medical college yearbook, of all places, there was a picture of a dude dressed like what somebody would picture a Klucker looking like, or Holloween ghost, along with another smirking dude with shoe-polish all over his face, which has us simple country folks to the north of you wondering if this is something out of an Arlo Guthrie song like “Alice’s Restaurant” where Arlo had to walk over to the Group W bench where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, which in his case was “littering,” and “creating a nuisance.”
And not to be left out of the media scrum, the Cuomo News Network has a story on the kerfuffle entitled “Ralph Northam aimed to stem resignation calls. He failed” by Dan Merica, CNN, on 2 February 2019, where we were treated to this, as follows:
“As painful as yesterday was for Virginia, I hoped that today would bring healing, truth and transformation.”
“I pray Sunday will be that day,” said Tom Perriello, the former congressman who ran against Northam in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2017.
“It gives me no pleasure to say that what we’re seeing is the manifestation of white male entitlement,” Perriello continued.
end quotes
“White male entitlement,” Jack – there perhaps is what this is really all about – Northam is a symbol of white male entitlement in America, so that is why he has to go.
ANTHONY SACCO says
HIS ABORTION STANCE,
KNIFE’S KILL
GUN’S KILL
DEMOCRATIC’S KILL
Paul Plante says
According to the news I am reading, Northam is in real serious trouble here, and frankly, it is surprising he has lasted the day, and as can be expected in these political dramas, there is a sub-plot now swirling about the Lt. Gov. and a sexual assault, but the dude was just on the news saying there was really nothing to it, just politics, and they are bringing it up now because the dude might be governor, so that is that.
But poor Northam!
According to the New York Post article “Ocasio-Cortez, Clinton join in calling for Ralph Northam’s resignation” by Tamar Lapin on February 3, 2019, with Hillary Clinton and Democratic Socialist political superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on his back now, Northam is seen as done here, big-time.
According to the Post, freshman New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton are joining the chorus of prominent Democrats calling for the resignation of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam over a racist photo from his medical school yearbook.
“Northam must resign, and those who try to help him stumble past this deserve scrutiny,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Saturday night.
“If you can’t understand how painful + eroding this is to American society, let alone the state of Virginia, take some time to read up this weekend,” the left-wing media darling added, suggesting people start with “Between the World and Me,” a nonfiction book by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
end quotes
Ocasio-Cortez, of course, is a congresswoman from Queens, which happens to be in New York City, not Virginia, and it is for that reason that she would know better what is good for the Commonwealth of Virginia than would the people who live there and are too close to the situation to know what is best for them, and besides, it is a good way to keep your name in print if you want to continue to be a left-wing media darling like the Democratic Socialist congresswoman from Queens with her warning that I am taking seriously that Northam must resign, and those who try to help him stumble past this deserve scrutiny.
And then there is the added weight of Hillary as we see from the Post, as follows:
The pediatric neurologist-turned-governor rejected calls to resign — though he did admit he once put shoe polish on his face to imitate Michael Jackson during a dance competition in Texas in 1984.
But prominent members of his party weren’t having it.
“This has gone on too long.”
“There is nothing to debate.”
“He must resign,” Hillary Clinton tweeted Saturday night.
end quotes
I can just imagine Hillary stamping her heel for emphasis on each word there as she growls “HE (heel stamp) MUST (heel stamp) RESIGN (heel stamp)!”
That is what made Hillary such a powerful presidential contender all those times – her ability to act forceful, and presidential, as she is doing there.
And if that combination was not enough, according to the Post, presidential hopefuls including Sens. Cory Booker (NJ), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Kamala Harris (Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) have also called for his resignation as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Joe Biden.
It was Nancy Pelosi, as we recall, who was the critical voice in getting Anthony Weiner to resign from congress after photos of the dude’s “muscle of love” as he called it went viral, so people are wondering what impact it will have here, where Northam’s alleged sin is considered far more serious than anything Weiner did, because Northam’s alleged sin is considered racist, while Weiner’s was not.
According to an article in The Atlantic entitled “The Weiner Shot That Pushed Pelosi Over the Edge – She sought his resignation following the circulation of an explicit photo” by John Hudson on June 17, 2011, a key actor behind Rep. Anthony Weiner’s resignation was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, reported Politico’s Mike Allen, with it appearing that the moment that convinced her the New York Democrat had to step down was when an X-rated picture of his nether regions was leaked to the radio DJ’s of The Opie and Anthony Show and spread across the Internet.
As that article went on to say:
Interestingly, as some may recall, the explicit photo (of Weiner) was never supposed to be published at all.
Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart said he was holding it as an “insurance policy” in case Weiner continued to deny the allegations against him and depict Breitbart as a liar.
But Weiner didn’t do that.
Unfortunately for Weiner, Breitbart showed the producers of the Opie and Anthony Show the photo and they surreptitiously snapped a photo of the picture during that screening, according to Breitbart.
Little did any of them know the photo would then move Pelosi to call for Weiner’s resignation.
end quotes
And in this case, the yearbook image was first posted Friday by the website Big League Politics, a conservative outlet founded by Patrick Howley, and he was a former writer for the Daily Caller and Breitbart, so how about that for a coincidence!
And as if that were not enough, the New York Post has another article on the drama entitled “Ralph Northam huddles with advisers as pressure grows to resign over racist photo” by Mark Moore on February 4, 2019, where we learn as follows:
Embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam huddled with his cabinet and staffers Monday and asked for more time to make a decision as pressure continued to build for him to resign over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook.
And Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, added his voice to those urging Northam to step down.
“I agree.”
“It’s past time.”
“Governor Northam should resign so Virginia can move forward,” Schumer of New York wrote on Twitter.
end quotes
Like Ocasio-Cortez, Charley “Chuck” Schumer is from New York City, and thus, he would be a better judge of what is good and right for Virginia than would be somebody who actually lives in Virginia, because by not being from there, Charley “Chuck” has no emotional attachments to get in the way of his judgment to make it cloudy, which brings us back to the New York Post article as follows:
Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said he believed his fellow Democrat will ultimately “do the right thing” and resign.
“Ralph is a good, moral, decent man.”
“And may have made some mistakes in his past.”
“We all have made mistakes.”
“Ralph will do the right thing for the commonwealth of Virginia.”
“He will put Virginia first.”
“And I think that will happen relatively soon,” McAuliffe said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
McAuliffe said Northam’s excuse doesn’t hold water.
“You know if you put black paint on your face,” he said.
“You know if you put a hood on.”
“And so if it isn’t you, you come out with immediately and say, ‘This is not me.’”
end quotes
And that blast from McAuliffe follows this from the Washington Post article “Northam meets with senior staff and considers options, including resignation” by Gregory S. Schneider, Laura Vozzella, and Jenna Portnoy on 4 February 2019, as follows:
Party leaders, concerned that Northam will become a liability for 2020 Democratic hopefuls and threaten Democratic control of an important swing state, have been unrelenting in their demands that he step aside.
McAuliffe, who helped Northam win the state’s top office and under whom Northam served as lieutenant governor, said on Sunday that he was “heartbroken” over the discovery of the photo.
But he said Northam’s insistence that he was not in the picture was irrelevant.
“It doesn’t matter whether he was in the photo or not in the photo at this point,” McAuliffe said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“We have to close that chapter.”
end quotes
Ralph, dude, take a hint here – it doesn’t matter whether you are really innocent or guilty, because as far as everyone is now concerned, you are an embarrassment, and that is what makes you guilty now, so you got to go, dude, which is the message we get here from that same Washington Post article as follows:
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), speaking as a member of Congressional Black Caucus leadership, said there is nothing Northam can do to persuade McEachin to give the governor more time in office.
“He has to resign.”
“It’s in the best interest of the party.”
Jimbo says
This article is a little politically biased.. just a little.. nonetheless, Northam knew better at the time of this photo. Most will agree that your mid twenties is long enough to understand what is innappropriate and what is not. I see how this can be interpreted as a way of showing a type of humor, a way of showing how absurd rasism and predjudice is and that we have accepted the realities of the past to a point where we can make fun of it with a show of costumes and face paint. Maybe it reflects that we can all get along after all, and that we stand together as one people. And then maybe the picture shows the opposite—that we still cannot accept this type of behavior, even 30 years ago and today. I think we have to make up our minds on how we will treat things that have already happened and how we will treat future instances of it. The key is that there can’t be a double standard and that cognizance of its existence, even in current times, should be met with responses that respect those offended by it and also gives those who did offend a way to rehabilitate.
Paul Plante says
Your’s is an excellent essay as well, Jimbo, with regard to the important points you raise in here vis-a-vis most will agree that your mid twenties is long enough to understand what is innappropriate and what is not and the fact that some day, we in this country will finally have to make up our minds on how we will treat things that have already happened and how we will treat future instances of it.
And that thought brings us to Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson (May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950), who was an American singer, comedian, and actor.
At the peak of his career, he was dubbed “The World’s Greatest Entertainer,” and his performing style was brash and extroverted, and he popularized many songs that benefited from his “shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach.”
In the 1920s, in fact, Jolson was America’s most famous and highest-paid entertainer, so talk about a cultural figure in American history, Jimbo, he was it.
As to Jolson, he has been called “the king of blackface” performers, a theatrical convention since the mid-19th century.
With his dynamic style of singing jazz and blues, Al Jolson became widely successful by extracting African-American music and popularizing it for white American audiences who were otherwise not receptive to the originators.
Despite his promotion and perpetuation of black stereotypes, his work was sometimes well-regarded by black publications and he has sometimes been credited for fighting against black discrimination on Broadway as early as 1911.
And here is an Al Jolson Blackface Minstrel Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhavaXOynO8
So, back in the 1920s, Jimbo, the black folks of that time were grown up enough and mature enough to be able to laugh at a white Jewish man trying to pretend he was black so he could be popular singing black songs to white audiences.
What has happened in the interim, do you think, that now has black people so emotionally weak that they are literally crushed by seeing some moron with a can of beer in his hand and shoe polish on his face in a medical school yearbook?
RICK says
O Dear hear we go again in all my life i have never read so much B/S regarding so called radical nonsense from so called educated people who should be embarrassed to even put pen to paper.
yes 200 years ago there were bias prejudice against and between people of different Cultures an d background ,in the last 80 years we have matured in every nation of the world . RICKyes Comedians make jokes on TV & stage Jewish comedians British , American Black & white all make fun of each other you know WASP KITE the Girl from West Virginia with one leg longer than the other Taffy the Welch GUY It goes on FOR GODS SAKE get over it Grow up STOP USING RACE AS A MEANS TO START A WAR MAKES YOU LOOK STUPID
Paul Plante says
Rick, all in all an excellent essay wherein you raise a lot of important points, starting with this thing of “race,” and how surprising, and yes, even amazing it is that so-called “educated” people in this country still do not realize, as strange as that is, that regardless of skin color, which, as you take pains to make clear, is superficial, there are not different races of human beings.
Somebody with black skin belongs to the same human race as someone with yellow skin, or white skin, elsewise, how could we account for Barack Obama?
What is truly stupid coming at us in barrages from the juvenile and adolescent main-stream media is all this talk of people like Obama or Kamala Harris being “bi-racial,” when nothing could be further from the truth.
So why do they continue to do it, Rick?
Having stepped up to the plate here on that issue, let me tell you that the candid world is hoping you are going to put that fallacy to rest in here for once and for all.
And while we are talking about things that truly need to be put to rest, let me take you back to the Washington Post article “‘The picture’s not me’: Va. Gov. Northam refuses to step down, despite flood of calls for his resignation for ‘racist and offensive’ photo” by Laura Vozzella and Gregory S. Schneider on 2 February 2019, where were were treated to the following from the so-called “educated” people on the Washington Post staff, as foll0ws:
Members of the state legislature’s Black Caucus spoke of how they felt profoundly let down by Northam, who had worked alongside them on key legislation.
“We feel complete betrayal,” the caucus said in a statement.
“The legacy of slavery, racism, and Jim Crow has been an albatross around the necks of African Americans for over 400 years.”
“These pictures rip off the scabs of an excruciatingly painful history and are a piercing reminder of this nation’s sins.”
“Those who would excuse the pictures are just as culpable.”
end quotes
A piercing reminder of this nation’s “sins,” Rick?
Surely, you are not just mindlessly buying in to that crap spew, are you, Rick?
Is “slavery” a “sin” of this nation, Rick?
And how about “Jim Crow?”
Is that also a “sin” of this nation?
Or are they really “sins” of the Democrat party?
And if they are sins of the Democrat party, why then are they being blamed on the nation?
And what of this statement that the “legacy of slavery, racism, and Jim Crow has been an albatross around the necks of African Americans for over 400 years?”
Why, Rick?
Why are these people chained to four hundred years of hate?
Why is something that happened 400 years ago somewhere in the world an “albatross” around the neck of anyone living today?
And what about the meaning of that phrase, Rick?
Literally, the phrase “albatross around the neck” refers to an annoying burden, and the phrase alludes to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” in which a sailor who shoots a friendly albatross is forced to wear its carcass around his neck as punishment.
Given that, Rick, what is it these members of the Virginia state legislature’s Black Caucus are being punished for here, do you think, that they have had to wear an albatross around their necks for four hundred years now?
RICK says
Thank you for your constructive comments . So lets step back about to the Roman Empire several thousand years when Slavery was a common practice but this time these were not Black White Slaves . now you should loot into where Human life started Or Began some Million years way before the Word Christ was formulated , Each of us White People have a Very small Percentage of so called African blood , .now you my Laugh at this statement remember the Romans and Egypt were formed with a mixture of Central African tribes Centuries ago . in closing check your DNA and start to trace your Heritage you will be very surprised
Paul Plante says
I’m one of those people who really doesn’t care what is in my DNA.
My blood is no more or no less red than anyone else’s, and no one has DNA that is better than anyone else’s, and besides, all blood that is passed down comes from the mother, so if the first mother was black, then we are all soul brothers, Rick, so how about that?
RICK says
Thank you for your constructive comments . So lets step back about to the Roman Empire several thousand years when Slavery was a common practice but this time these were not Black White Slaves . now you should look into where Human life started Or Began some Million years way before the Word Christ was formulated , Each of us White People have a Very small Percentage of so called African blood , .now you my Laugh at this statement remember the Romans and Egypt were formed with a mixture of Central African tribes Centuries ago . in closing check your DNA and start to trace your Heritage you will be very surprised. Also take a very close look at Prince Harry and his new Bride she is part Black .hard to tell , Now visual appearances can change from one generation to another now multiply by a million years , get the picture .
Paul Plante says
Rick, while we are sitting here watching the top leadership of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the “Old Dominion,” melt down and self-destruct right before our eyes, what, pray tell, is this fascination in this country with Meagyn Markle and Prince Harry, do you think?
RICK says
Good Morning Paul i think at this stage all has been Said . Till our Brothers & Sisters of a different texture get over this redoubtable feeling we will always have resentment . so both sides grow up enjoy our life on this Planet for the short time we are residents With regard Meagyn & Harry Good luck if she can turn her act around he will never be King just like Charles , GOD SAVE THE QUEEN ,
Paul Plante says
There are those who would kick if they were playing football, Rick – negative people who have a perverse need to be an eternal victim of something.
This Reverend Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr., a Baptist minister, hate-monger and a former White House adviser for President Barack Obama who was just down in Virginia calling wearing shoe-polish on your face if you are white a sin in his religion that must be atoned for and expiated by Ralph Northam and that other dude, the one who is attorney general, Herring or something like that, having to resign their offices in shame and humiliation, happens to be one of them, as we see from the WHSV article “Rev. Sharpton to Gov. Northam: ‘You are a blackface user’ – Latest on controversy surrounding the top three elected democrats in VA” by Eric Perry, WWBT, Feb. 07, 2019, to wit:
RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) — The Rev. Al Sharpton didn’t hold back on his thoughts Thursday about the controversy surrounding Virginia’s top leaders.
At the beginning of a speech about community and racial reconciliation at Virginia Union University, he told Gov. Ralph Northam, “You are a blackface user.”
end quotes
Uh, yeah, okay, Reverend Al.
SO WHAT?
Outside of you, who cares if the due made himself look stupid putting black shoe-polish on his face to look like Michael Jackson when everybody knows Michael Jackson was getting his skin bleached so he could look white.
Then we have this gem from Reverend Al in that same article, as follows:
“I flew out of New York to tell you that your political days are over and you need to go on to another life,” Sharpton said.
end quotes
What do you think is up with that, Rick?
Where does a hate-filled little pipsqueak like Reverend Al Sharpton of New York get the right to tell an elected official in another state he has to leave office, or else?
And as could be expected, the Richmond Times-Dispatch had an interesting perspective on the drama entitled “‘If you sin, you must pay for the sin’ — Al Sharpton calls for Northam’s resignation at Virginia Union event” by Justin Mattingly on 7 February 2019, as follows:
Gathered on the campus of Virginia’s oldest historically black college, black leaders on Thursday escalated calls for Gov. Ralph Northam to resign.
Local, state and national officials converged on Virginia Union University’s weekly chapel service to respond to Northam’s use of blackface in 1984 at a dance contest, an accusation of sexual assault against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, and an admittance Wednesday from Attorney General Mark Herring that he, too, had worn blackface at a college party.
“It’s not by chance that God pulled back the covers in Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy,” said Del. Delores McQuinn, a Richmond Democrat who is a member of the Legislative Black Caucus.
“We must acknowledge it.”
“The only way we can get beyond it is to acknowledge.”
end quotes
Now, help me out here if you can, Rick, with regard to acknowledging that Virginia was the capital of the confederacy.
I thought everybody already knew that, because it is taught in what, the 5th grade?
So what is up with this statement of this Del. Delores McQuinn, a Richmond Democrat who is a member of the Legislative Black Caucus, that the only way “we can get beyond it” is to acknowledge that Virginia was the capital of the confederacy?
If everybody, including her, already knows that Virginia was the capital of the confederacy some 156 years ago now, what is there left to acknowledge?
And why?
What is this fixation these people have with Virginia being the capital of the confederacy?
RICK says
In conclusion lets but this redundant controversy behind us i my self have lived in many areas of the World an d have never seen the kind of retroactively except in the Poorest parts of of North Africa & Egypt and i am a right wing Conservative .there are no free lunches . i started from the very bottom in 1947 twelve hour days and week ends to own two corporations retired 23 years ago..
Paul Plante says
Rick, let me say here that I am honored to have made your acquaintance through the Cape Charles Mirror, and I salute you on your success in life through your own hard work, which used to be the definition of “the American way,” to work for something as opposed to begging for it from the hand of a master, or hoping for it, from the hand of a messiah.
As Gaius Sallustius Crispus, known to us generally as Sallust (86 – 34 BC), a statesman and historian during the last century of the Roman Republic, said of people in Rome back then, as the Republic was falling, “Only a few prefer liberty – as for the rest, they seek nothing more than fair masters,” and in our times today, that is so true once again, except for a few people like yourself who realize the truth of what the visionary Emmylou Harris sang in her song, Tragedy, to wit:
Some say it’s destiny
Whether triumph or tragedy
But I believe we cast our nets out on the sea
And nothing we gather
Comes for free
end quotes
Now, I am sure that there are a lot of millenials out there who believe in socialism providing everything for free without having to work for anything who would dispute the indisputable truth of what Emmylou is saying there, but so what for what they think, ain’t it, Rick, because it does not change the truth of what she is saying, which brings us to another thing Sallust said back when, which is this:
Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart.
end quotes
How many of our modern-day politicians is he talking about there, Rick, besides most of them?
Hope Murphy says
Why was the photo released now?? It was released now because of the bill he supported allowing infanticide. Do we really want a bill like that in Virginia? A pregnant woman was murdered two weeks after the New York bill passed. Her killer will not be charged for the death of the baby.
Shortly before he tried to pass his murder bill, he attempted to pass red flag gun laws. If you are from the Shore, I can’t see thinking this is ok either.
The Democratic Party has sealed Northam whole. They can have him!
Paul Plante says
You bring up an important point about timing here, Hope Murphy, as to why the “blackface/Klucker” photo came out when it did, and I certainly endorse your premise that this is a backlash to Northam’s alleged vow to make Virginia more like New York vis-a-vis killing babies, and to thereby gain for himself in left-leaning Virginia some of the outright adulation his political idol Democratic Socialist governor of New York Young Andy Cuomo enjoys in the corrupt ****-hole of New York from the giddy-with-glee “pro-killing babies” set in New York, as can be seen in the video which accompanies this New York Post article
https://nypost.com/2019/01/22/andrew-cuomo-signs-bill-updating-new-yorks-abortion-law/
entitled “Andrew Cuomo signs bill updating New York’s abortion law” by Yoav Gonen on January 22, 2019, as follows:
New York’s abortion law was updated and strengthened Tuesday night when Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Reproductive Health Act into law that had just passed the Senate and Assembly.
The legislation also removes abortion from the criminal code and clarifies that a range of medical professionals, not just licensed physicians, can perform the procedure.
Advocates had said New York’s law would protect abortion rights in the event that a conservative US Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
end quotes
Ralph Northam likely saw all the love there flowing towards Young Andy in that video, and being only human, and as the Reverend Al Sharpton says, a sinner, to boot, it is understandable that he would crave some for himself, the adulation and cheering fans, I mean, and so, he stepped up to the plate here in Virginia, and by doing so, he has perhaps hastened his political doom, although in truth, that remains to be seen.
On that subject of the love flowing to Young Andy that Ralph Northam likely wanted some of for himself, “Christian Today” had an article entitled “Catholic Church says no to excommunicating Andrew Cuomo over New York state abortion law” by a staff writer on Mon., 28 Jan. 2019, as follows:
The Catholic Church has rejected calls to excommunicate New York Governor Andrew Cuomo after he pushed through a radical abortion bill legalising terminations up to birth.
end quotes
That is what Democratic Socialist Young Andy Cuomo did in New York state and that is what Ralph Northam wanted to do in Virginia, and le voila, along comes that picture which has never been either a secret or a political problem, but now, thanks to him wanting to make Virginia like New York under Democratic Socialist Young Andy Cuomo, it is, although it looks like Northam is going to stay on, so perhaps infanticide in Virginia won’t be a dead letter, afterall, but for that we will have to wait and see.
Getting back to what perhaps sparked the backlash in Virginia, we have the following from that same article to consider, as follows:
Cuomo further angered pro-lifers when he ordered that major landmarks in New York City, including One World Trade Center, be lit up pink in celebration of the Act’s passing.
“The Reproductive Health Act is a historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values,” said Cuomo.
“I am directing that New York’s landmarks be lit in pink to celebrate this achievement and shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow.”
end quotes
Where Young Andy Cuomo grabbed that power to turn public buildings pink to celebrate being able to kill babies from, besides from out of his ***, remains a mystery to us peons and serfs outside of Young Andy’s New York City in the hinterlands and wilds of New York, and it will always be, since Young Andy is accountable to no one and no thing, and so that question will never be posed to him, and anyway, the deed is done, which takes us to an Albany, New York Times Union article entitled “Did the Reproductive Health Act celebration go too far?” by Chris Churchill, updated January 31, 2019, as follows:
Albany – On the day he signed the Reproductive Health Act into law, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered Manhattan’s Freedom Tower and Albany’s Alfred E. Smith Building lit with pink lights in celebration.
You can count Assemblyman John McDonald, the Democrat from Cohoes, among those who believe the governor’s move was disrespectful.
“Lighting up the buildings and running around celebrating abortion is not something I support,” McDonald told me Wednesday.
end quotes
Up here, Young Andy Cuomo, a tyrant, is vindictive (having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge; unforgiving, grudge-bearing) towards those who oppose him in this state, and with those pink lights, Cuomo was showing off his political power in this state, while at the same time, sticking a sharp stick in the eyes of those who oppose his rule in this state, which takes us back to the TU article as follows:
McDonald voted for the law, which expanded abortion protections and removed abortion from the criminal code.
But he is sensitive enough to those who oppose abortion as a deeply held conviction to believe that rubbing salt in their wound is ungracious.
But such is politics in the age of Cuomo and Trump, when policy wins are conflated with the vanquishing of opponents.
end quotes
I am going to speculate here that it was this totally “ungracious” (rude, impolite, uncivil, discourteous, ill-mannered, bad-mannered, unmannerly, uncouth, disrespectful, ungallant, insolent, impertinent, impudent, churlish, boorish, gauche, cavalier, ungentlemanly, or hostile) behavior on the part of Young Andy Cuomo with those pink lights that helped to fuel the indignation in Virginia that brought forth the blackface photo.
Getting back to the TU article:
In Cuomo’s case, this winning-without-grace approach has led to a remarkable war of words with the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.
For some in the church, it was a slight too far.
That highlights the risk Democrats face when they aggressively antagonize Catholic voters and the faith they hold dear.
end quotes
Did this contribute to the backlash against Northam in Virginia?
An interesting question for our times.