Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam saw his governorship, leadership capacity, and credibility implode spectacularly over 24 hours. His Feb. 2 press conference revealed a politician who…
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam saw his governorship, leadership capacity, and credibility implode spectacularly over 24 hours. His Feb. 2 press conference revealed a politician who was deluded about the reality of his dilemma.
The day before his remarkable press conference, Northam announced that he was one of two people depicted on his 1984 medical-school yearbook page, but he didn’t know whether he was the person in blackface holding a beer, or the person wearing a white Ku Klux Klan outfit. The next day his story changed: he expressed shock and outrage at the clearly racist picture and now claimed that he was not in the picture at all and had no idea how the picture ended up on his yearbook page (even though other pictures on the page clearly came from him). He said he had never seen the yearbook and had not purchased a copy.
Then he confessed that in 1984, after graduation, he participated in a Texas dance contest where he dressed as Michael Jackson, performed a version of Jackson’s famous “Moonwalk” complete with glove, and added some shoe polish to his face to better impersonate the signer.
Apparently, he won the contest.
Now, 35 years later, Northam apologizes for his racial insensitivity. At the same time, he has no idea why a couple of upperclassmen at his undergraduate school, Virginia Military Institute, nicknamed him “coonman.” It’s altogether possible that the nickname was just another Davey Crockett moment, but the overall pattern was disturbing enough to generate bipartisan outrage and calls for his resignation.
