Gov. Ralph Northam…Last week, a photo in his 1984 med school yearbook surfaced where one person was in blackface and the other was in a Ku Klux Klan outfit. First, he apologized for it. Then, he backtracked, saying 'it wasn't me.' And said, 'well, I did dress up as Michael Jackson once.' He's refusing to resign even though people in his party are telling him to.
Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax…Next in line to become governor. He came under fire after a woman accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex on him in 2004. Fairfax denies the allegations and says it was consensual.
Attorney General Mark Herring…If both Northam and Fairfax resign, he'd be next in line to become governor. Yesterday, he admitted to wearing blackface and a wig to dress up as rapper Kurtis Blow when he was in college in 1980. His admission came after rumors circulated that there was a blackface photo of him floating around.
i have a lot of questions about this. (i'm focusing on the blackface stuff, not the fairfax sexual assault):1. is there / should there be a statute of limitations?
2. does age matter? someone wearing blackface as a child is different than as a college student or a fully formed adult.
3. is there an alternative to forcing someone out of office? can we make this a "teachable moment" rather than a public flogging? I mean, we can do the shaming thing too, but can we add another "moral of the story" rather than simply "don't ever do anything racist."
4. (and here i'm going to get a lot more controversial) is there ever acceptable blackface?
I see a difference between wearing blackface as a random black man standing next to a KKK member, and doing it as a Michael Jackson impersonator. in the latter, you're dressing up because you like Michael Jackson. you respect him as an artist. you're not necessarily playing up any racial stereotypes, you just want to look more like Michael. in the former, you are just plain being offensive.
I get that invoking historical racial stereotypes is bad. but let's say I wanted to dress up as actress lucy liu. her eyes are just a little bit smaller than mine. let's imagine that I taped mine back a bit to look more like her. is that racist? do I get a pass because i'm Chinese and she's Chinese too? on the other hand, if I taped my eyes back to look more Renee Zellweger, I imagine people would be less upset. she is white after all.
but, like, is it just POC who can get away with being racist? people do say that. but is it actually true? or, when coming from a POC, is it somehow not racist anymore? can I make fun of Chinese people only or all Asians? maybe only east Asians?
