Va. Gov. Northam is refusing to step down, despite flood of calls for his resignation for 'racist an

[Rollo]

22. When I was a kid in the 50's, my older sister and her friend donned blackface for Halloween...

This was in a small New England town, but I later found out it was not immune to racism. I was too young to understand what it was. It was just described to me that they were dressing as "bums", but that did not explain the charcoal on their faces.

I do remember my sister getting hell from our mom for the outfit - she was very displeased about it.

However, fast forward, and my sister eventually married a person of color and had two nice kids with him. People make mistakes when they are younger; some people are able to change.

I don't know Northam well but it appears to me his record since medical school has been exemplary particularly with regard to civil rights. I think Mark Twain described the slow awakening process in Huck Finn, where he finally began to accept runaway slave Jim as a fellow human. We are a long way from that era, but people can and do change if we take some effort to open their eyes and minds.