VA Governor Northam Won’t Address Racist Reality, Runs From Blackface Past

1. The embattled and embittered Virginia Governor has squandered every last ounce of political capital. He has fundamentally forfeited the authority to govern. Take a hike! Ralph Northam: GET OUT of Richmond, NOW!

2. RACIST NORTHAM RESIGN NOW!!

3. I agree that 1985 is too late! but before the Civil Rights Act, it was "normal" I do not blame Fred Astair or others – you cannot judge a person in the past by today's standards. Jackie is right. Marc is too harsh. Why wasn't Obama mentioned? He should have done more but all he wanted was to join the all white rich men's club.

   What upsets me is being lumped into "all white people" I am hated for having pale skin just like black people are judged for their skin – it is all wrong. This is divisive. Our country needs to come together. Vengenance is not the answer! White Supremacy should be changed to "Rich White Men Supremacy."

   The irony is that I am 25% Native American but I appear to many as the enemy because I have blue eyes. It doesn't matter that I taught in an all black school in Philly or that I worked for Civil Rights when I was young because nobody bothers to ask.

4. He should resign.

5. The wealthy really don't like the fact that the internet won't allow them to re-write their pasts like they could before. Making up whatever story about their pasts is one of their favorite things to do.

   Psychopaths have to project after all. It's just what they do.

6. I wish people who reflexively condemn Fred Astaire for his "Bojangles of Harlem" number in "Swing Time" would actually LOOK at it. It is NOT an exaggerated, racist caricature of the type Bing Crosby used to do in movies with regularity. It is a tribute by one great dancer to another, whom he revered, and his makeup consisted of nothing more than a tan face. It was no different from Laurence Olivier using burnt cork to play "Othello." Would either be accepted today? Not by most people, nor perhaps should it. But that is a different argument, and there is an enormous difference between blackening one's skin for a tribute, or a dramatic role, and doing a racist minstrel number. All anyone hears today is,"Fred Astaire did blackface," and the discussion ends there. For Marc Steiner to equate Astaire's loving homage to Bill Robinson in 1936 with Northam's ugly bigotry 50 years later is either sheer ignorance or opportunistic sophistry. Neither speaks well of him.

7. Actually this video promote rasism

8. I'm glad that no one on the Real News Network ever did anything like that. I'm glad that there are no prominent "Black People" who ever committed racist acts against"White People". And yes, I know first hand about racism in Virginia, much more than the participants on this panel.

9. I was a Freshman in 1985 living in a state with an exceptionally small black population. Im talking less than 1% of the people in Montana were black and there were no black students in any of the local schools. Even though we didn't have to worry about offending or hurting black people we knew that blackface, the N word, slave auctions and the like were wrong. I find it hard to believe a man in medical school in THE SOUTH was blind to the hurt he would cause.

10. The Governor squandered perhaps the greatest opportunity of a life time to lead and he cowered and stammered and equivocated. I'm not saying I would do better, I do not know. Sometime when the truth is laid naked before us, it shames us all.

11. But what happens when we totally negate any person's attempt to say they were wrong and apologise? What incentive is there for anyone to admit their mistakes if they are still going to get pilloried? It's very hard for a politician to admit wrongdoing as it is, we should at least accept that people's attitudes can and do change and encourage such improvement.

12. Excellent analysis by Luqman and Conway. Measured, penetrating and dead accurate. Northum has just shown horrible leadership and painful racial insensitivity. And he did something absolutely and definitively racist, voluntarily, in 1985. There is no room for Northum on the left.

13. At least he doesn't support infanticide…

14. I thought being a racist was a prerequisite for a VA governor

15. There are no such thing as races, there is only one race.

16. Jackie is correct.. God Bless.

17. let's make sure this is dudes last term.

18. he should have moonwalked during that press conference

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