I'm from the same generation as Northam and Herring. Their behavior is mind-boggling.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Public office is a privilege, not a right. When you’re found to have racism in your past, the question is: Should you be allowed to redeem yourself while in office? Or should you have to step aside and stand down until you carry out that work?

When the news broke that a photograph of two individuals wearing shockingly racist garb appeared on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook page, my immediate instinct was to Google him. I needed to know his age. I knew Northam wasn’t a peer of former senators Strom Thurmond or Robert C. Byrd, with their Jim Crow and Ku Klux Klan histories, respectively. No, he was from my own generation, born after me, in 1959, five years after Brown v. Board of Education was decided. He was a kindergartner when the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. It was essentially the same for Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D), born in 1961, who has now admitted that he, too, once wore blackface, as a 19-year-old student in 1980.

It’s mind-boggling.

Northam, Herring and I are the beneficiaries of the civil rights generation. Though children, we had our childhoods marked by the traumas of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. We witnessed the dignity and resolve of activists, black and white, who risked all to hold America to the promise of its founding creed. We learned of the murders of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney in Mississippi in 1964. We remember in vivid detail the burning streets and neighborhoods of the summer of 1968. We were in high school or entering college around the time of our nation’s bicentennial.

...


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/im-from-the-same-generation-as-northam-and-herring-their-behavior-is-mind-boggling/2019/02/08/598408cc-2bd2-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term=.1d767b6de9f0

I am from the same generation as all four of them. When I was twelve years old, being raised in the exurban south, I found a discarded lawn jockey and brought it home. My dad had the good sense to paint its face white before putting it in front of our home. In retrospect it was pretentious as our home was less than 1,000 feet.

[Hortensis]

1. I looked and Rep. Edwards was born and went to college

in North Carolina, a significant point since cultures varied from region to region significantly more back then. She was apparently also raised in the south. However, she is a black and a woman, which both defined very strong cultural differences. For sure she did not belong to any white fraternities and, by her own statement, belonged to social groups that would not consider disrespecting POC harmless fun.

A black musician on NPR the other day said he saw black face at costume parties on campuses all over the south in that era; he was often the only black man in the room and said he often suspected those costumed that way didn't expect him to be there. So there was awareness.

But in any case, an analyst pointed out that fraternities are famously breeding grounds for future leaders and that we should expect a lot more of these revelations from that era to come out. I don't even want to know about disgusting, randy adolescent behaviors and attitudes regarding women, mainly because I already do and wince at the thought, but be ready for that also.

[Scurrilous]

2. LOL at the lawn jockey story.

[lancelyons]

3. As an older white guy I pride myself and not being racist and treating everyone the same

As an older white guy I pride myself in not being racist and treating everyone the way I would like to be treated. My father was in the service and we spent alot of time going back and forth between El Paso for 18 months and Germany for 3 years. A large chunk of my friends where african american and it was just normal. i graduated from HS in 1981.

Back in the USA, I would see examples of racism in a number of locations. I have noticed that its getting better and better every year.

Remember we are 50-60 years removed from when we had White Only and Colored people bathrooms in public.

In my opinion black face in the 80s is not as telling as how you treated african americans in your life.

If Northram has done things for African Americans that was good and decent and not racist this should count more than black face.

If Northram was demostrably good, fair and decent with African Americans then that should weigh much more than black face at a costume party in the 80s.