Lets be clear. The deafening chorus of Democrats and Republicans calling for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to step down over that blackface picture has little to do with African-Americans.
Its about politics. Specifically, its about Donald Trump.
If there ever was a case that pointed out both parties shallow interest in pushing forward an agenda addressing racial equality, it is this made-up angst over a picture that appeared 35 years ago in a medical school yearbook in Virginia.
Virginia, of all places. Everyone knows the racist history of that state. It is where much of the Civil War was fought. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy, for Christs sake.
While he says thats not him in blackface standing beside someone in a Ku Klux Klan robe, Northam admits that he once wore blackface years ago during a dance competition where he appeared as Michael Jackson. He insists he didnt realize at the time that it was offensive. But now he does.
Is it really so shocking that someone who grew up on a farm in a county with such strong ties to slavery might have put black shoe polish on his face at one time or another?
I dont know a whole lot about Northams life growing up. But hes said he attended desegregated schools and graduated from a predominantly black high school. Its also been reported that he currently attends a racially integrated church on Virginias Eastern Shore, and that his pastor is African-American.
Some would say such early exposure to African-Americans should have caused him to know better. But just because blacks and whites go to school together doesnt mean they actually sit in the lunchroom and talk to each other.
Northam says he didnt realize the harm hed done by dancing in blackface until he had a conversation about it later with a person of color.
He let me know why this was offensive, Northam said at a news conference Saturday. I apologized to him, and I will never do it again.
THIS IS WHAT a conversation on race looks like. Someone does something racially insensitive. He discusses it with someone he has hurt and he comes away understanding why this seemingly innocent act is so painful to others.
These are the kinds of interpersonal discussions that can move our nation forward, not the angry, hate-filled rhetoric Trump has encouraged Americans to spew onto each other.
I will not pretend to speak for every African-American, but for many of us, there is simply no outrage over that blackface photograph on Northams yearbook page. Of course, its racist and offensive. But many of us who live in blackface every day arent shocked to learn that a white politician has racist skeletons in his closet. What many African-Americans care about is what Northam has done for them lately.
Apparently, black people in Virginia thought he would be their best ally when 87 percent of them turned out to vote him into office in 2017.
