Maybe they can start by finding out how in the hell itâs possible that a yearbook with a picture like that in it came out without a single student, faculty member of administrator thinking it worthy of note.
I mean, WTF? I was in school then. In Kentucky, FFS. And I can assure you that had any four year college, graduate program or professional degree program in the entire fucking state come out with a picture like that in it in 1984, there would have been student protests, faculty senate resolutions, board of governor phone calls to the president, threats from donors, and, ultimately, the holy hell administrators unleash even on rich white boys when they have embarrassed the school.
Because though I canât get people born after then to believe it, and Reagan notwithstanding, the country was, in many ways, still a lot more liberal then. The WWII vet boomers who voted for Kennedy along with the ones who just said they did, were in the ones holding offices and positions. The yuppies, veterans of the Civil Rights movement, student protests, the kind who voted for Bobby or got Clean for Gene were in their prime. College students were definitely more conservative than they had been, but among those who werenât Apartheid and college divestment from South Africa was the cause dearest to our lefty little hearts.
Rush Limbaugh was just a local talk radio jock in Sacremento (holding down Morton Downyâ Jrâs old gig) because Reagan had not het gutted FCC regulations who had not yet slithered onto the airwaves of the entire nation and renormalized and validated bigotry and vileness under the guise of âhumor.â It was a time when white conservatives were eager to engage in virtue signalling by joining Democrats (rather than just point scoring) when a clearcut, easy target like this presented itself.
And so, I must confess I am baffled by how this wasnât a big deal, in real time. Yes, Virginiaâs brand of racism (and, in some ways still is) one of the hardest, meanest kinds of racism in America once you got outside Alexandria, but even it was electing black governors. I just donât fucking get it.
Launching a probe wouldâve been a great idea â 35 years ago!
Looks like Trump is not the only one in the altering reality businessâŚfrom an apology to confusing excuses toâŚ
The Phone Call
This is supposed to give this man additional time so that the news cycles wipe the issue off the map.
âI will give a definitive statement when the probe is completed.â
Bullshit.
Waiting for repubs including McCarthy, McDaniel and VA GOP chair Wilson to call out a chief executive for his appalling insensitivity on race. Yes, Northam brought this on himself, but the hypocrisy of the Rs is enough to choke on.
Do you mean the 1987 Eastern Virginia Medical School pageant for âPickanny Of The Yearâ didnât offer a clue to you, Dr. Homan?
I cannot even choke on the GOP hypocrisy concerning racism. It is just too immense to fit in ones mouth.
I thought Al Franken was shoved out over a picture that showed him touching a womanâs bosoms in a gag, skit. Canât, a computer image âwashâ off his face to bring out the white face? Iâve seen skulls reconfiguration in crime shows. Just sayinâ
Yet the GOP get away with âJudgeâ Kavanaughâs" rendition of being a party beer guzzling boy back in the day and his groping ways and now the nation is stuck with him.
The climate created by the administration is corrosive and this is the result. Horrible, just horrible
Well, maybe you have a few things to learn about racismâŚ
This is why I feel uncomfortable whenever I cross the Potomac River into Virginia. It has many lovely places, but thereâs a vibe that makes a non-WASP feel unwelcome.
Yeah, I think that horse left the barn about 35 years ago.
Pickaninny of the Year.
That is beyond grotesque.
I wonder if VMI and the Citidel will follow suit going back and reviewing yearbooks. They might be military academies but they arenât the United States service academies like West Point.
In 1984 Lee Atwater was continuing the Nixon era Southern strategy. The Reagan administration was defending the tax exemption for the outwardly racist Bob Jones University only to be thankfully shot down by the United States Supreme Court.
By todayâs standards weâll say itâs evolving standards of decency.
Got news for this guy⌠I think the problem isnât with the yearbooks.
White people always have more things to learn about racism. But aside from that, was there a point to that comment youâd care to amplify, or were you just unable to avoid the urge to chime in with one of the smug personal digs at people you donât know that seem to form the bulk of your comments here?
Exactly what I was thinking. Are we to assume that there might have been other incidences of this, and the school has had no idea?
And as far as Northam was concerned, did he think that this would never come out or something?
Really?
As a student who was protesting for my university to divest from S. Africa at that time I find it stunning that 1) anyone still behaved this way, 2) that it failed to generate a maelstrom of outrage at the timeâŚ
We commit to transparency and moving the investigation forward as quickly as possible.
Blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblabbetyblah
How many people buy the yearbook of a medical school? By then Iâd think people are mostly past that, except for the fratboy types for whom the partying experience and âbondingâ are what itâs about. I know I didnât bother with my college yearbook.
So exactly the people who would have seen the yearbook might well have been the people who thought blackface pictures were just fine.
I was browsing for Arcade Fire on iTunes and got cross linked to Peter Gabriel and ended up downloading âBiko.â And for a few minutes, I was back there, feeling that blazing 20 year old fire of hormonally charged righteous certitude.
And reflected again that, in my wildest dreams, I never imagined Apartheid would ever end in any way other than a bloodbath.
Things arenât perfect, as they never are. But I never saw it ending as well as it did. And maybe what we did had nothing to do with it, but maybe, just maybe, we helped a little.