More blackface trouble in Virginia
The Democratic AG Mark Herring of Virginia, who is third in line for the governorship (first the embattled governor Northam, then the accused lieutenant governor Fairfax, and next AG Herring), admits he wore blackface at a college party in 1980.
“In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song,” Herring said. “It sounds ridiculous even now writing it. But because of our ignorance and glib attitudes – and because we did not have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others – we dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup.”
Said Herring, “This was a onetime occurrence and I accept full responsibility for my conduct.”
A veritable blackface epidemic.
I don’t think anyone is going to resign at this point; there are too many of them, and apparently the person next in line for the governorship is the Republican Speaker, Kirk Cox. Can’t have that.
Nor do I think any of them should resign. Dressing up in this way close to forty years ago for a college costume party—when people weren’t all that “woke” about PC implications—does not a racist make. If a person’s a racist, you have to come up with something a lot more recent and considerably more meaningful and purposeful (unless, of course, it’s about a Republican like George Allen, whose supposed offense, although new at the time of the controversy, was almost certainly unintentional).
The whole thing sent me on a trip down memory lane. I’m older than all these gentlemen, and I went to college back in a time when racism was real racism: overt and unmistakable. The civil rights movement had already made its major gains, but socially it was still quite usual for fraternities and sororities to be all-white. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t at all unusual for Jews to not be allowed into most fraternities and sororities either (interestingly, at the college I attended, it was only the Jewish fraternities and sororities that had some black members).
And yet I have zero recollection of anyone ever wearing blackface. To check, I took a look at one of my old yearbooks this morning. Many many photos of drunken party revels, as well as costumes (Hawaiian, Lederhosen, Vikings) but no blackface whatsoever. It wouldn’t have been considered to be in good taste even then, I think; I certainly never considered it to be.
But the 1980s seems to have had a spate of accusations of this sort of thing at college campuses; see this, for example, from the 1989 NY Times:
The incidents began in the spring of 1986, when the University of Wisconsin’s chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity held a party featuring a ”Harlem room.” Watermelon and fried chicken were served in the room, which had trash on the floor and graffiti on the walls. Members wore Afro wigs and blackface makeup.
About a year later, the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity held a ”Fiji Island” party that displayed a caricature of a black man with a bone through his nose. And during last fall’s semester, the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity held a mock slave auction in which members wore Afro wigs and blackface during several skits.
That seems a lot worse than anything the Virginia politicians did. Are we now going to discover who attended, and hound them out of their jobs? I wouldn’t put it past the left, just to show how righteous they are, and even if it turns out that Democrats are the ones implicated.
[NOTE: By the way, for what it’s worth, I do remember Fiji Island parties. Pretty wild stuff, but I don’t recall any blackface. Also, to be pedantic, that “black man with a bone through his nose” would have been a Melanisian, technically speaking.]
Excellent!
This is the new #METOO.
Maybe I should run for VA Governor. I’ve never worn blackface.
It is also being widely reported that Fairfax made a very obscene comment about Vanessa Tyson, his accuser; the Democrats seem no more willing to consider the possible veracity of her claim than they were of the very credible allegations against the loathsome Keith Ellison, now AG in the once-great state of Minnesota.
Are they in some kind of weird competition with Florida?
Al Jolson … a name up with which I grew *g*… famous for his singing and acting, well-known for working in blackface.
From the Foot of All Knowledge:
“You can’t tell the state of a man’s immortal soul by his costuming in certain contexts.” –Me
They resemble the Committee For Public Safety in 1793. Robespierre was Guillotined by his allies. The order for their arrest that he was writing out when he was shot by them, used to be in the Musee Carnavalet, with his blood still on it. The left always eats its own.
There was no blackface at my schools or anywhere in my personal experience. I find it odd blackface was a thing in some 1980s schools.
A few years ago I learned Joni Mitchell did blackface as a guy, whom she named Art Nouveau, on the cover of her “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” album (1977). She was disappointed no one figured it out it was her. I assumed the figure was a black session musician with good cheekbones. She even went out in public that way once and again, no one noticed and she was disappointed.
It was about the time she headed into jazz and bragged she had big audiences of black men and gay men. Aside from Prince, I never saw any evidence of either. I’m of the opinion Mitchell has been kinda crazy for a long time.
I’m with you on this, Neo. School parties from the 1980s are not sufficient to bring down adults now.
Besides, people who weren’t there in the 1950s-1990s really have no idea what the reality of racist talk really was and how long it took to change. I first moved into the Southeast in 1979 and I was shocked at what I heard. I don’t hear that kind of garbage any more.
My take on it – as a teen of the 1980s.
As much as most of us ever even contemplated the subject of race, we thought ours was a post-racial time. Nobody cared what color someone’s skin was. We probably knew someone – a grandparent, a crazy uncle – who still spouted off stupid racist stuff, but we were way above and beyond that. Moreover, we thought we lived in a free country:
“It’s a free country! I can do/say …”
…well, pretty much anything other than yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Our formative years were spent watching leftists do their best to offend Christians and conservatives. We kids of the “Footloose” years thought anyone offended by words (or sex, or rock music, and so on) were stuck in the 1950s.
When we put on dorky ethnic/religious/identity costumes – lederhosen or Viking helmets or nun outfits or Roman togas, the latter of which seemed particularly big in my region and time – it was because we thought it was funny. Nobody was doing it to be racist. As for blackface, I grew up in a Western state where there’s no history of minstrel shows or other events where blackface would be a factor: we put on sombreros. We were known to wear or use what would now be considered offensive costumes or props related to Native Americans (which we called Indians in the 1980s without a second thought). My presumption is that kids my age back in eastern states might have done blackface costumes if that’s what a cheesy party called for, for the same reason we donned Mexican and Indian attire. Looking back, I feel like we did it because racism was so dead and gone to us, so hopelessly old-fashioned and backward, that deriving humor from it made it edgy, modern and cool.
I have a friend from my university days who held an Octoberfest Party… complete with Nazi symbols and uniforms! Ok, even then, it was in bad taste. But, these are the moments in a young adult’s life to push and explore boundries.
Anyone who is being intellectually honest understands this. This has nothing to do with judging the characters of the mature adults. It has everything to do with political assassination.
KyndyllG, you’re probably right, although the black costumes had more of a history in the South, and that Klan hood wasn’t funny.
Now the news reports that Herring has resigned as co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association over this. I don’t know if Keith Ellison is in the leadership of the group, but he’s surely a member, and with a much more objectionable personal history than Herring.
I live in VA and find this so hilarious. The democrats are hoist on their own petard. They have been telling us president Trump is a racist, sexist pig and has to go. What are they going to do now? They can’t say it’s OK for democrats to do this. I’m going to have to get something for the schadenfreude or it might keep me awake tonight.
The 4th in line in Virginia is the Speaker of the House, who is a republican.
The intense investigation of him will now begin — it will be deeper than that of the first three, extending all the way back to his great-great grandparents.
I attended public schools in central Florida in the 1950s (from 3rd grade up to senior year high school) and NEVER experienced anyone wearing blackface.
I really disagree, they should all resign. They ran on a racist platform and now it is biting them in the you know what. Saul Alinsky Rules. Make them live by their own rules. It is very entertaining to see them eating their own.
Having said that, I bet none of them will resign or be forced out of office. Just look at Ellison. Just like nothing will happen to any of the Dems associated with BO or Hillary, including the Justice Dept, FBI, Intelligence groups.
Yes I am cynical.
why conservatives don’t capitalize this incident and brand Washington post as racist for burying the creditable allegation against fairfax until it could be utilized to preserve the white racist governor Northam by destroying fairfax?
we can turn this around and start our own witch hunt – how many closet kkk remains in the democratic party? only way the democrats would drop the identity politics game is when it starts to hurt them more than the republicans.
Lynn, I fear you are right if for no other reason than the guy in the batter’s box has an “R” after his name.
I have reluctantly come to the place where I favor smearing the left takes top precidence over trying to be fair. After Kavanaugh the gloves need to come off and brass knuckles are required.
Everyone white who loved and admired Michael Jackson in the 80s and who dressed up as him for Halloween needs to be found and fired and then exported to the reeducation camps to learn how to be a mental slave to the mobs of today.
Gerard: Check! (And I was never an M.J. fan — I’m not much for that style of music.)
As to all upset about the Klan costume: When I saw that photo, it seemed to me that the “Negro” was grinning, and the “Klan” guy seemed like a congenial partner in a cartoon.
–> My reaction was to take it as a gesture symbolizing reconciliation and comity between two human beings. And under that first reaction was another, which was along the lines that nobody had to take the Klan or its racism seriously anymore.
What we see really is partly in the eye of the beholder. It may well have been different in the Deep South in 1980, but at the time it seemed to Northerner Me that all that was fast disappearing as we all got on with our lives, including those of Negro ancestry. We did, after all, have such people living even in our small rural subdivision.
KyndyllG, there is nothing, nothing wrong with referring to those of American Indian ancestry as “Indians.” It’s far preferable to referring to them as “Native Americans,” which implies that those of us who were in fact born in America but have no Indian ancestors are not native to America; which is insulting. I am just as much and just as good a “Native American” as David Yeagley, or N. Phillips (and we should quit referring to him as a “Native American elder,” as “Elder” is a formal title of distinction in at least some of the tribes, and assuming that it’s true, as I have read, that he doesn’t hold that title in any tribe), or Chief Little Eagle of the Blackhawk tribe, who was a friend of my mother’s.
I just wish everybody would let this whole “racism” thing die. I’d thought it was dead and gone, but apparently the corpse, still unburied, is now putrid and festering among us.
As for the Indians, as children we found them interesting, exotic, and it was fun to dress up with the headdresses and all, and pretend to be Indians. We could be bands of braves, scouting for game or whatever. Or beating “drums,” or making pretend-smoke-signals.
Next we’ll be trying to disapprove of people’s wearing periwigs at Hallowe’en or fancy costume balls. Disrespectful of the British among us, don’tcha know.
Or kimonos (or whiteface). So as not to disrespect the Japanese.
It’s ridiculous. I suppose any day now Gilbert & Sullivan will be axed as acceptable in polite society. Also The King and I. And Othello.
Julie,
BHO along with Rev Wright, Farrakhan, Maxine, Sharpton, etc don’t want racism to be laid to rest. They are racists, it is their bread and butter, their rice bowl, and worth billions to their bottom line.
“Dressing up in this way close to forty years ago for a college costume party—when people weren’t all that “woke” about PC implications—does not a racist make.”
while I don’t totally disagree, we both know that were these clowns Reps, the MSM would drive them out of office. If we dont fight back we unilaterally disarm and continue losing. game theory only works when you have deterrence. Mitts and Jebs give no deterrence
parker, you’re absolutely right. *censored!*
avi:
I’m talking about reality, not political reality. They are two different things.
In politics, people need to (a la Alinsky) live up to their own rulebook. The Democrats believe it’s racism when Republicans do it, so they should be held to that.
But it’s not necessarily true, and I hate seeing people judged by one jokey act in their youth.
avi:
I’m talking about reality, not political reality. They are two different things.
In politics, people need to (a la Alinsky) live up to their own rulebook. The Democrats believe it’s racism when Republicans do it, so they should be held to that.
But it’s not necessarily true, and I hate seeing people judged by one jokey act in their youth.
sounds like we agree
neo,
“I hate seeing…” i get it, but I am passed that point. Alinsky rules can go both ways, it doesn’t need to be a one lane street. Fight fire with fire. No mercy, no surrender, complete victory, the hardcore left needs to be defeated. Note I say hardcore. The soft left will always be with us. They serve a useful purpose to keep the hard right in check.
parker:
I already stated I think their own rules should be applied to them.
But I also am stating my opinion of the rules themselves. They are pernicious.
Well neo, you nor I wrote the ‘rules’ of the hardcore left. Pernicious, indeed, but those are the rules they use against us in the middle and on the right, although the middle is a shrinking political voter base. We keep this first as a battle at the soap box, next is the ballot box which the left steals and harvests votes, and then finally it comes down to the cartridge box. I do not want to see that as the only option. Either we hit them with their own rules, or we take it eventually to the cartridge box. As djt would say, sad.
parker:
Very very sad.
The trouble is that they have now become THE rules.
I think I would be somewhat inclined to be sympathetic to Northam – who by the way should maybe be forced out because he seems like an idiot- the shameless race baiting of Gillespie during the campaign and Northam’s refusal to disavow that sickening ad with the pickup truck squelches any kind feelings. He should go.
But, neo, the rules can change, as unlikely as that may seem. The unmasking may produce viable fruit. I do not think the majority is as stupid as the left believes. But I could well be 100% wrong.
Carol Ann said…..(Northam)…”seems like an idiot”. Certifiably. A reporter asked during a press conference if he would do the Michael Jackson “Moon Walk”. The idiot damn near did it until his wife told him not to.
Interesting memories, neo. I attended college in an even earlier period. There were very few black students and they had a hard time renting places to live. One fraternity was known as “THE Jewish fraternity.” Prejudice was unashamed, widespread, and open… yet I never heard of anybody who thought it would be a good idea to don blackface (or, for that matter, a white hood.)
Oh well, maybe I just didn’t get invited to the “good” parties.
parker on February 6, 2019 at 7:17 pm at 7:17 pm said:
Julie,
BHO along with Rev Wright, Farrakhan, Maxine, Sharpton, etc don’t want racism to be laid to rest. They are racists, it is their bread and butter, their rice bowl, and worth billions to their bottom line.
* * *
https://texaslynn.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/booker-t-washington-vs-the-race-baiters-a-century-ago/
https://www.cato.org/blog/way-stop-discrimination-basis-race-stop-discriminating-basis-race
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/02/the-awakening-of-the-negro/308813/
Mike K on February 6, 2019 at 2:28 pm at 2:28 pm said:
They resemble the Committee For Public Safety in 1793. Robespierre was Guillotined by his allies. The order for their arrest that he was writing out when he was shot by them, used to be in the Musee Carnavalet, with his blood still on it. The left always eats its own.
* * *
Victor Davis Hansen agrees with you.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/remodeling-america-modern-day-jacobins/
Julie near Chicago on February 6, 2019 at 7:03 pm at 7:03 pm said:
As to all upset about the Klan costume: When I saw that photo, it seemed to me that the “Negro” was grinning, and the “Klan” guy seemed like a congenial partner in a cartoon.
–> My reaction was to take it as a gesture symbolizing reconciliation and comity between two human beings. And under that first reaction was another, which was along the lines that nobody had to take the Klan or its racism seriously anymore.
* * *
That wasn’t my first reaction (which was: What kind of adult adviser allows pictures like that in a yearbook!?!), but I can see both points.
Reconcilation can and does happen, if people are open to it.
Note the picture at the top of this post, and read the whole thing.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes
huxley — Joni Mitchell may be crazy, but her songs are fantastic. “I was a free man in Paris” has been an anthem for me since I heard it. It was written about David Geffen, who was her lover at the time, before he decided he was gay.
Julie near Chicago — when my wife was growing up in Elgin, the biggest event of the year was the Hiawatha Pageant, in which the young people of the town acted out the Longfellow poem. They made Indian dress, put on dark skin makeup, and danced Indian dances. Fortunately, the pageant ended years ago when the creator/director (who actually was half-Indian, IIRC), died. Had he lived and the pageant continued till now, the whole town would be under sanction. Incidently, the correct term should be “Siberian-Americans.”
huxley — Joni Mitchell may be crazy, but her songs are fantastic.
Richard Saunders: Agreed, at least up to “Hejira.” After that I couldn’t summon much enthusiasm for her work, though I tried and I tried hard. I felt like I had lost an old friend.
Can you recommend a Joni song post-1980?
She had a stroke a few years ago and hasn’t been well. I was pleased to read she recently attended Neil Young’s wedding to Darryl Hannah. Which is a weird confluence of her past relationships. But never mind. Be well, Joni.
Don’t forget about the guy in the middle of the two clowns. It turns out that Fairfax’s accuser made her allegations public over a year ago, and the Democrats suppressed them; I started looking when I read that Fairfax lawyered up (with Kavanaugh’s counsel – heh) in January 2018.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justin-fairfax-accuser-told-house-democrat-more-than-a-year-ago-about-sex-assault-claim
That is in addition to the WaPo reporter who deep-sixed the story .
Note: Tyson is now being represented by Ford’s lawyers.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/justin-fairfaxs-accuser-speaks.php
This analysis appealed to me because I took several courses in Game Theory in college.
I actually got my Bachelor’s degree in a cross-discipline major (aka catch-all for courses that didn’t really fit in any other discipline) that was called “Mathematical Sciences” and included lots of “practical math” (not mathematics proper) and computer programming (not engineering), and later I kind of specialized in that sort of thing when I got my MA in Government (my alma mater at the time did not dignify us with the moniker Political Science).
https://thebulwark.com/the-awful-game-theory-behind-ralph-northam/
Huxley and Richard,
Re: Joni Mitchell. I listened to her in an interview a few years ago (before the stroke), and when the interviewer referred to her as ‘One of the 20th Century’s greatest female songwriters’ she laughed and said; ‘ONE of?’. I think the implication was that she felt she was THE greatest female songwriter of the 20th Century. Now I am a hardcore Joni fan (agree with the Hejira point), but that took me a bit aback until I gave it some consideration. But really, does anyone come close to her? For both quality and quantity? Maybe Carole King? And King had songwriting partners.
Weird Joni incident. I was with my husband on business trip to London in the early ’00’s. One day while my husband was at meetings I bought a Joni biography and began reading it. What could be better – tea and crumpets and Joni. And that very evening at dinner I looked up as she walked in the door of the restaurant, and sat down at the next table. I thought I was hallucinating! I asked my husband if I was imagining it. But no, it was diva Joan herself – holding court with a table full of starry eyed young music types. But even then it was obvious she was not in good health.
Yes, be well, Joni, be well.
Aesop,
What a great story about the rescuer of Klansmen, Daryl Davis. Thanks!
Mollly, Huxley, and Richard
Listen to her song “Little Green” about the daughter Joni gave up for adoption and contrast the current sacrament of abortion practiced by the left who shout their “choice.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIzJnBWovOs
@KyndyllG is mostly right – these are anti-stereotype jokes.
Where is talk about Animal House – Toga parties?
Northam? He should be in a movie, like … Blazing Saddles! (1974, still popular in the 80s)
… “I’m gonna shoot the nigger!” says the black sheriff, pointing his own pistol at his head, holding himself hostage.
Now it’s a firing offense if a white person says the n-word (but it’s ok for blacks — a clear racist double standard).
The rules need to change back to accept free speech AS offensive speech.
Reps should be constantly complaining about the rules, and the hypocrisy of the Dems at not enforcing them.
Re: Joni Mitchell. I listened to her in an interview a few years ago (before the stroke), and when the interviewer referred to her as ‘One of the 20th Century’s greatest female songwriters’ she laughed and said; ‘ONE of?’. I think the implication was that she felt she was THE greatest female songwriter of the 20th Century.
Molly Brown: I agree, at least in rock. I don’t know songwriters like Piaf and Simone and no doubt others well enough to put Mitchell over all. In rock the only possible peers I can come up with are Carole King, as you say, and Laura Nyro.
My problem with Mitchell is the chip she has on her shoulder when it comes to her place among the best male songwriters. She’s good, but I don’t think she sits at the same table as Bob Dylan and the Beatles.
Huxley,
Nobody sits at the same table as the Beatles!
Beatles, meh, whatever sinks your submarine. 😉
Molly: Yeah, the Beatles were something else.
Over the years I’ve heard from mothers how there came a magic day when their kids discovered the Beatles and then in the following weeks went through their Beatles phase as they frolicked through those songs.
Most of my teenage memories are indexed by the current Beatles album playing at the time.