It is interesting how we focus on the governor and the attorney general. I want to look to the North. As I recall only a couple of years ago, an associate master (and indirectly her husband who was then the master) of Silliman College at Yale University was encouraging students to allow themselves to be a little racist on Halloween. Dress as Indians, perhaps don a little blackface. We are all too politically correct.
When students and faculty got upset, her right to freedom of speech was held up. Wasn't she, in fact, encouraging students to destroy their political career before they even began? Apparently. In fact, if a student had taken her advice, I would not ban him or her from politics for life. Perhaps they would have learned a painful lesson. In short there is a big difference between advocating for such behavior and forgiving it. Let's face it, we all do stupid things some times. The point is to learn from them. Our secret mistakes can make us reflect and change in profound ways. What happens when the are exposed? the really important question is wht is Gov. Ralph Northam's behavior today?
What is particularly fascinating is that there was a culture of problematic blackface. Did Northam and others have to black up to prove that they were real "men." More than the students, perhaps the administration for that Med School is to blame. Anyway, I am wondering what all those advocates of free speech are thinking right now. They seem strangely silent.
The "... death of the Jim Crow era", is not death. It's not even on life support." Mississippi is" (not) "a hotbed of democracy".
The bigger picture tells us that we don't have to cross the state line between Maryland and Pennsylvania to find like attitudes, discourse, and behavior. They are everywhere in our country and more recognizably on the march; possibly because we are more attuned to recognize them and call them out.
Good for Virginia for coming to grips with this mess. They will sort it out and in the longer term be the better for it.
2
Virginia has always been a place of contradictions. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, yet held slaves and fathered children by at least one of them- Sally Hemings.
Patrick Henry was quite simply a racist, yet all most hear is of his “give me liberty or give me death”.
There are plenty of others.
Remember, the Loving case came from Virginia.
3
Although this process is destructive and painful to the individuals being singled out, the acknowledgement of America's racist past is long overdue. I grew up in an all white, Archie Bunker sort of town (not in Virginia, either.) I didn't start to question any of it until I got to college. Thank God people learn and change. Northam and Herring seem to have, I know I did. But I can't deny sitting in the audience and laughing at a minstrel show when I was 7 years old. What intelligent adult doesn't have a different understanding of race in America now than they did in 1960?
4
Tigers can’t change their stripes.
It appears that the phrase “The New South” is merely an advertising slogan.
I am done voting for ANY male no matter which party. Done! Black, white, Asian, foreign, native...doesn’t matter, women’s safety and secure is NOT guaranteed in America.
African American blood, suffering and labor built the United States of America. Hundred and thousands of slaves left the vile conferdate states to join the Union Army to defeat their horrndious cruel ideology. They won the civil war and where still persecuted lynched and killed and denied equal citizenship. The rementents of this cruel history still remain exemplified by our current president and the party he represents and in the attitudes of many others.
We all need to respect and hold our African American Citizen in the highest regard for what they are. They are our Leaders.
1
It's really odd that the Democratic party of VA missed these issues with their candidates when they were vetting them for office, and their opponents missed it during the primaries, and the GOP of VA also missed these issues during the election. Add on the election of DT and the aftermath of his stewartship, it's obvious that we don't have a broken political system. We have a stupid one.
I am still waiting for UVA faculty to offer a statement on the Charlottesville riot in an established forum such as the New York Times.
I recognized the statue near the downtown mall because I used to run by it three times a week. I wrote a short story about it, beginning with an image of the pigeon droppings trickling down into Robert E. Lee’s eye sockets.
Perhaps Larry Sabato can affix his toupee, emerge from his Alderman Rd. bungalow, and chirp a few homilies before returning to his cushy six-figure salaried position.
I winced when I watched Cornel West, in an interview with Anderson Cooper, refer to the United States under Obama as the “Obama plantation.”
This from a man who probably earns as much as the Presidents of Harvard and Princeton.
As Northerner going south in the mid sixties.
When we got to the Mason Dixon line was when the adults started using “boy” for adult black men.
I thought it was kind of silly and mean as a child, but the grownups thought it was great.
Impeach Earl Warren! were the roadside billboards. People just don’t change that fast.
1
It’s a good thing for Virginia to acknowledge its past. It owes that to its residents—past, present, and future. Even the Times is trying (publishing obits). It’s a good thing. Is Virginia willing?
We shouldn't pile on Virginia.
I was born in Boston and the city was no welcoming wagon for non-whites. My twin brother and I were attacked by about a dozen white kids at a public park when we were five (1949). They hit us, spat on us, introduced us to the "n"-word. We had never experienced anything like it.
The public swimming pools in the city were open--nominally to everyone--but they were essentially segregated by neighborhood. On a day in 1959, our community house took a bus to Charlestown to visit the monuments. The bus was attacked, stoned and rocked by angry neighborhood whites.
In 1961, there was a race riot at a high school football game. Although there were no killings or very serious injuries, the incident at George White Stadium--in one of Roxbury's black neighborhoods--had been building for a long time. South Boston High School, a not very good team, was being soundly beaten by my (integrated, all-boys' school). The whites sat on one side of the stadium and when a black kid with a white girlfriend walked into the stands, that was the spark that lit the fuse.
The Red Sox, long resistant to integration in the big leagues, were a team of white Southern types. I witnessed Jimmy Piersall physically shove Bob Boyd of the Baltimore Orioles out of the Sox first-base dugout as he tracked a foul pop-up. The fans cheered. Racial insults were the norm; school busloads from the suburbs screamed the "n-" word at a group of us. The Sox shrugged.
Virginia is hardly alone.
10
I attended what was then Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia, when I lived briefly in Virginia in the 1970's. This earned me a spot on their alumni email list.
This past fall I began to receive solicitations to support an effort to keep the name of the school. According to many of these solicitations, roughly 85% of alumni opposed a name change. I shot back an email asking if they could direct me to any funding effort that supported removal of Robert E. Lee's name from my former high school. Silence.
It got worse. When the name was finally changed to Washington Liberty High School, the pages of the few Facebook friends and classmates I keep in touch with from that era absolutely lit up. All, it seemed, totally opposed the name change.
I was floored! Arlington is hardly the deep south. Yet all but a few classmates saw nothing wrong with asking black students to continue to walk into a school named for a man who fought to keep their ancestors enslaved.
I am not surprised by the recent events in Richmond, the capitol of the Confederacy. So glad Virginia is not my home.
40
@hammond I am glad Virginia is my adopted home although I spent the first fifty+ years of my life as a New Yorker and even more years as a fighter for civil rights. As a person who know a racist when she hears one, I can assure you that Norfolk's native son Dr./Gov. Northam is the antithesis of a racist. Shame on everyone trying to tar and feather him no matter which party they belong to.
9
The " New South " is the old South, with electronic devices.
Sad.
5
I was born in Richmond, VA in 1949 in a racially segregated Community Hospital. My father was the Secretary of its Board of Directors. I started in Richmond's public schools in 1954, the year of the Brown decision. My grammar school, middle school, and high school were all black with all black faculties and administrators even when I graduated to off to college in 1967. It was the legacy of Massive Resistance to school integration -- a policy that was also used to justify closing Virginia's Prince Edward County public schools. The intellectual justification for Massive Resistance was first articulated by conservative Richmond newspaper editor, James Jackson Kilpatrick, who in his later years evolved to become center right national commentator seen most often in counterpoint to Shana Alexander each week on network television's "60 Minutes." His past deeds were by this time faded and almost never mentioned. But I never forgot his roots. Some years later at a clever Georgetown party I came face-to-fact with Kilpatrick; he had become an old man and would not live to see the next year. I told him that I knew of him. "You see, I grew up in Richmond," I said. Looking down, he said quietly, "That was a long time ago." I answered, "Yes, but I remember well." And without further word, I walked away and left the party. It was a moment to cherish -- he stood before a black man who called him to account for his hatred.The host, who observed the exchange, never invited me again.
9
The comments to this article provide great insights.
To an outsider the incidents long ago the disclosure of which has triggered this outcry seem trivial, but they have obviously hit a very sensitive nerve. The fact is it does not matter what triggered it, any one of a thousand things could have done it.
I wonder, is there any place on earth where two or more substantial different racial populations occupy a single geographic area living in harmony, with full integration and equality? It is always a struggle, there are always issues, there is always a history.
It is clearly time for Virginia to clean up its act. Get rid of the offensive statutes and holidays and politicians, respond fully to the legitimate sensitivities of the black population, call out the bigots, expel them from society. And this drive should be lead by the white population, not forced by the black population. And, of course, vote against Trump and any one who supports him.
4
We’ve been visiting southern Virginia a few times a year for 40 years. The inherent racism was always there, especially as we became familiar to the local folks and comments became less guarded.
But it wasn’t until Trump was elected that the Confederate battle flag displays came out in earnest. We began to feel surrounded, and - in a certain way - threatened. Yet we couldn’t comprehend why the local folks - losing population and decent jobs over the years - voted against their own best interests.
5
Maybe if we didn’t whitewash our history into a contorted rah-rah jingoism these kind of things wouldn’t happen because we’d understand the accurate historic context.
Which is the greater injustice - youthful insensitivity or the thwarting the will of the voters? Should we also throw out healthcare for the 400,000 covered by Northam's medicaid expansion? Should we boost the GOP's chances to control congressional redistricting in 2022? What other ways we should roll back real progress to satisfy the vanity of your moral outrage?
Wake up to the very real price we all - especially the least privileged - will pay for that vanity. Maybe it's time for truth and reconciliation, South Africa style, instead of more psychological repression.
3
Those celebrating Northam's transformation from what he was in 1984 have a good argument and has made me reassess. Still, in the context of 1984 from a med school grad? One would think that four years of that grind would season such a young man. Such stupidity in 1964 and even 1974 would get a pass. Robert Byrd did with his mea culpa. Northam's grad year was a completely different world and it's hard to believe he wasn't aware of what that costuming represented, unless it was cosseted white privilege doing its thing. Let me think on it.
Change won't take place unless there is a way to let people who were caught up in racist behavior and thinking to acknowledge their past mistakes and be able to move forward.
I live in Oregon, a state with an absolutely miserable racist history, but over time, it is learning and becoming a pretty good place to live, though as a white person, I am certainly not aware of a lot of what African Americans have to endure. We have the same problems as Virginia though we didn't have a population 30% slave at our creation.
Hard work, changing from hate to equality.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
1
This needs a large step back. Remember how this scandal was exposed--by an ultra right wing news outlet. Both scandals, actually, the blackface and the sex. I doubt they care about the blackface as much as they care about disrupting Virginia's decent government. Ruining Democrats in Virginia was the result. And remember Republican disenfranchisement of people of color just last year. So what will be the likely outcome of their exposé, and who will benefit?
Remember Harry Byrd and the bad old days; this is a tempest in a teapot in comparison. The blackface happened when Byrd and racism controlled the state, and was done by men raised in an atmosphere long gone in many northern states but still strong there. If you are old enough, remember the mistakes you made 30,40,50 years ago that you don't make any more.
Finally, remember what we aren't talking about that this has replaced in the headlines: Huge donations and subpoenaed records for Trump inaugural; hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay and threats to do it again; ongoing arrests and guilty pleas of Trump associates... We don't need to look too far for a motive.
4
Why aren’t we celebrating the fact that Northam & Herring have utterly shed their youthful racists proclivities and evolved into adults committed to social justice? Isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t this transformation EXACTLY what we want for American society?
To condemn these men for past mistakes seems utterly illogical...What could be more inspirational? It’s present-day racists who deserve our contempt...Not men who have genuinely changed...
5
This was another time and different set of rules. 30 months ago this would not be tolerated or even published in a yearbook. Over 30 years ago, obviously more tolerated. Based on the source of this story, obviously political. Worth a reprimand, sure. A removal from an elected position, probably not since no crime was committed, just bad judgment at an earlier age. I am confident in saying we all have done something stupid in our past which we regret today.
1
I guess lots of people forget Richmond was the capital of the south. Slaves were sold in Alexandria within 5 or so miles of the US capitol building. In fact the feds ceded Alexandria back to Virginia. Really Virginia is two states: Alexandria which is the lake in the sea of blue. Once you hit rural Virginia, forget about it. You are in deliverance land.
"... New South Image" What? When did this happen? This kind of myth is what lead to Justice Roberts saying there is no need for the election rights laws to be renewed.
1
As a graduate of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, Class of 1961, I carefully went through the 2 yearbooks I had to search for photos or images or wording that would be deemed offensive by today’s standards.
As Virginia was still fighting the Civil War, and rebelling against Brown v. Board of Education, and its schools were still segregated (which had shocked me when I naively arrived as a freshman from Queens), I assumed the yearbooks would have been treasure troves of racist imagery such as that contained in the medical school yearbook of Virginia’s current Governor’.
But for one photo in which a member of a fraternity (which boasted about its having been founded by Robert E. Lee in the 1860s) was shown standing in front of a confederate flag, I found nothing overtly racist. To my pleasant surprise there was not even one photo in which anyone was wearing “blackface” or a Klan outfit or holding an offensive sign.
Of course what was offensive is that the entire student body at the time, and nearly all the faculty, appeared to be Caucasian which meant that countless capable people who were not Caucasian were deprived of the opportunity for an excellent education, and we as students were deprived of the opportunity to learn and interact with them.
8
@Gerry Goldsholle
Having known many Wm & Mary grads over the years, my guess is that the dearth of overtly racist images in your yearbooks isn’t so much a dearth of racism as it is that African Americans simply didn’t exist in any real way to your cohort, and to subsequent cohorts.
That’s why all the faces were white: That was the point.
5
Gov. Ralph Northam has been a good governor. He managed to get Virginia to pass a law that gave 400,000 poor people access to Medicaid. He has been sensible about gun violence and has stood up to the NRA. He is member of a church with an African-American pastor. He has advanced civil rights in Virginia.
This excellent record is why he should remain Governor of Virginia despite his youthful insensitivity more than 30 years ago.
8
There is a simple formula for judging such incidents. A) how long ago was the incident B) how serious was it, and C) what has been the accused person's conduct in the years since. (A x B) - C = how severely that person should be condemned.
8
The NAACP and the democratic party leader ship is missing a great opportunity. The Northam story is a story of redemption. It is the story of the success of the educational efforts of the NAACP to educate white Americans and, in particular Southerners, to avoid racist tendencies. Northam is an example of the success of that movement. He admittedly participated in racist behavior in his youth. However, he’s become an outstanding citizen who does not have a racist bone in his body. The NAACP should be lauding his transformation not condemning him.
3
I moved to Norfolk from New England in 1990 and found it very charming. Taught Latin in an inner city school, and had both back and white students. Their dream was to attend UVA or William &Mary. Many succeeded, others did not, and attended other colleges.
Though I lived in a mostly white neighborhood, my daughter attended that same school and was one of few white kids in the marching band.
Many of my former black students now enrich the community: they are teachers, doctors, lawyers, and navy officers.
This year in Norfolk backs and whites celebrate the 100 anniversary of the Attucks Theater, the first theater built by African Americans.
Black and white supporters organized the events. Black and white artists will perform in the theater. Black and white audiences will enjoy the events.
This is the heart of Virginia. Come and visit!!
17
@R. M., that sounds like a very nice, perfect place to live! It's so awesome to hear that there's a place in the US where everyone of all races can live together, go to school together, work together, and play together in peace, harmony and love. That's the ONLY way we all should live together!!
5
@R. M. ,
Not on a bet.
I don't like visiting places hostile to The United States.
1
@Victorious Yankee, Norfolk is home of the largest U.S. Navy base in the world. I sincerely doubt that you'll meet many people "hostile to The United States."
1
Virginia was colonized by the Virginia Company that grew tobacco for European consumption. Slaves were brought to Virginia to work the fields and just to do about all other manual labor. A civil war was fought and the Slave States lost. Civil Rights were given to freed slaves. All statues and other Confederate Items like Flags,Seals, etc should be once and for all banned in the United States of America. These statues and flags just inflame racism because they ignite a resentment that really has nothing to do with the current environment. Anger for any reason a racist has is manifested by pointing a finger to the culprit- African Americans. This has to be stopped! Any item that represents hatred, bigotry, and racism should be outlawed. It’s high time we all look at each other as Americans.
21
@Peter Z
First, I do not condone hatred, bigotry and racism or violence what so ever. It has no place in the modern world.
However,, "...All statues and other Confederate Items like Flags,Seals, etc should be once and for all banned in the United States of America. ..." would be a move that could set a very dangerous precedent.
Down the road, who would decide what items may be bad and should be banned? Should the past be sanitized and forgotten? Should symbols of current groups, good or bad, be outlawed because of a few extremists? Where would it end?
5
I am so torn. And angry. And hopeful.
Northam and Herring did something 35 and almost 40 years ago that was profoundly insensitive and inarguably stupid.They should be ashamed. They should be contrite.
But it wasn’t criminal. To ruin their careers now is to suggest that they didn’t / couldn’t learn better in those ensuing years. Or that they can’t feel remorse.
The President, on the other hand, has been accused by no fewer than a dozen women of sexual assault. He systematically tried to prevent African Americans from renting in his buildings. Those acts are criminal and a majority of us are pretty sure he hasn’t learned better and can’t. And won’t. Yet he’s still President.
One newly-minted and another not-so-new Supreme Court Justices were accused - credibly - of heinous acts against women, but they’re still Supreme Court Justices.
If, tomorrow, blackface was declared illegal and the enforceable penalty was death, not one African American would benefit.
If, on the other hand, tomorrow we stop believing in our ability to grow and learn and evolve, we are, all of us, done as a race. To quote a famous phrase, “The Human Race”.
It’s OK to be angry. But if you think Governor Northam and Mr. Herring have shown growth in those 35 and almost 40 years, give them a chance. Maybe eventually you’ll even be able to forgive them.
60
Racism and sexism are alive and well in all 50 states. VA is an easy target; inexcusable behavior by elected officials. We also need to recognize that the GOP is infuriated by the recent blue wave and their defeat in a state turning blue. Strategies used by infamous Lee Atwater, Gingrich, and opposition research gurus are in play; three elected men are slammed in a matter of hours by right wing bloggers. Every citizen who is disgusted by these disclosures should look in his/her closet. Anyone who's belonged to a white only country club, frat/sorority and has attended or sent their child to a white only school is complicit. Anyone who supports a fundy church aligned w/Trump supporters is complicit. Nobody has the high ground in any state if s/he cannot look at yearbooks and pics that are racially and sexually "pure." Glass houses exist in NY, WY, CA as well as VA. Casting stones is dangerous. We need to rectify behavior and change policy in the US; there's economic, social racism in every institution.
22
Yes Virginia, there is no Sanity Clause.
10
Society has this issue wrong. With Real Multiculturalism you should never assume your values are above others. Changing an election because you find a culture or belief system offensive is bigotry. Personally I'm against any name calling but I don't find black face or the confederate flag offensive. Welcome to a multicultural society where there is no firm belief system set in stone.
5
@quisp65
You expose but don't excuse the problem with multiculturalism as a doctrine. A healthy culture must have generally agreed-upon values in order for people to get along and to cooperate on society's projects. That means that some values, some ideas, some expressions, must be rejected. Otherwise we have anarchy. Ironically, it's liberals, who are usually so vocally supportive of multiculturalism who are the leading voices of suppression this time.
There's something about all those statues you drive past in Richmond that makes one doubt the new image, just a little.
10
Um . . . The recent “revelations” don’t obscure Virginia’s progress, they underline it.
12
I do not buy this argument that the early 1980s were such a different era from today that Virginia politicians should be given a pass for wearing blackface. After LBJ signed the civil rights act and the voting rights act in 1964 and 1965, that represented the official end of the Jim Crow era, thankfully. That Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy does not permit Virginia an exemption from those early 1960s federal laws. It is cowardly to make the different era argument.
11
“Its cowardly to make the different era argument”, except its not. Its myopic to view the civil rights era as something that happened in the past or that hearts and minds were magically transformed by the legislation of 1964. Nor did the Jim Crow era end because LBJ signed the civil rights and voting acts. It has continued and adapted both culturally and legally to this very day. Neither society nor the law are static and cultural evolution from one era to another is a reality. If it weren’t we would never change or grow as individuals or as a society. To be born in one era is to be raised in the belief systems of the times. To grow beyond those beliefs and embrace a wider world view is why many of us aren’t who we once were. Those claiming that people can’t change are locked in their own “firm belief system set in stone” that denies that the very human act of growth and maturity exists. We were once very different than we are today. We see things with eyes that view a more expansive ideal of what constitutes “us” to include those we once thought of as “others”. People change and grow, often slowly and grudgingly but they do. After all our very survival depends on it.
@John Chastain I agree with much of what you say. But for a man who got his MD in 1984, it is cowardly.
Abolish Lee Jackson day in VA. You could actually do that now with a Dem governor and nearly Dem majority legislature. Let's start there.
20
@Chris M I couldn't agree with you more. Lee Jackson day is a throwback to the phony revanchist romanticism of the "lost cause", built on the foundation of racism, slavery and jim crow.
3
I generally love this paper, but man, this stuff is why Hillary lost--"my stuff don't stink" Northern elitism. I am a Virginian and remember chuckling at a cousin in NC who was ranting about the Times' "down its nose" coverage of his state a few years back. Now I get it.
The comments make it even worse--like-minded transplants probably living largely among other affluent, college-educated transplants. We have a comment from Boston, easily the most racist (riots, anyone?) and segregated city I've ever lived in acting like racism is dead there. Or NY--you could map out exactly where the black and white divide is just by looking at home prices. An enlightened city that wasn't heating its jails during a polar vortex. Eric Garner.
VA's underlining problems aren't that much worse than anywhere else. They're more in the open. They often come out of growing up in a place that has a misguided, often insensitive, and maybe somewhat ignorant sense of "southern pride". But a lot of people who are easily written off as simply rascist aren't malicious--just blissfully unaware and perhaps callously uncaring how certain things might hurt others. In the south, the racism's out in the open. But black and white rub elbows every day in Richmond, Charlottesville, and Norfolk. That's more than I can say for Boston or NY, where you could live without ever interacting with a non-white person.
Would be nice to see a newspaper of this quality take time to learn the nuances of places they cover.
44
@ch6 "Boston easily the most racist" city? That's an oft-repeated yet sparsely supported diversionary claim. No doubt ugly bigotry persists there as well as across the nation, both institutionalized and individualized, but please. Just look at the the mass murder in Charleston South Carolina, for instance, the ongoing glorification of Confederate icons (I was in Richmond when advocates had the audacity to add Arthur Ashe to Monument Drive---wow, that was an education), and the FBI statistics on hate crime rates in the 50 states---not even close, the South "wins" hands-down. Time to face the reality of the past and its bold imprint on the present.
2
Is your memory that bad? Remember Minstrel Shows? Remember the top entertainers doing blackface and being loved for it? Blackface was a very acceptable form of entertainment. I grew up in an area of Pennsylvania where there were many Minstrel Shows. Blacks even attended.
People shouldn't be penalized now for what was far more acceptable 40 years ago.
15
The southern Democrat has walked like a serpent throughout this countries history. I've come to understand that many southern elites have similar trespasses via college fraternities. At first blush I'd say get rid of these relics of the past; however, for those who have a pedigree of good works contrary to past racist-like deeds, they should seek to get ahead of the uprooting of photos and come clean and make public apologies.
3
How can Virginia be the “New South” when the state is littered with relics of the Okd South? If Virginians, and all Southerners, were serious about a “New South,” they would take down every Confederate monument tomorrow. But since they don’t, I suspect those relics of the “Old South” are for most native born whites a source of comfort and perhaps even a symbol what they believe was a better time.
Some times I wonder why Lincoln bothered. This country would be so better off without the South and it’s racism and bigotry.
10
@Sterling
The first time I heard the n word I was on a 5th grade field trip for school riding the activity bus down to the World Trade Center in NYC in 1976. Our public middle school in Putnam County NY had maybe a half dozen black kids out of 1600 students. As we were riding down one of NYC's long Avenues, down to the Trade Center, about 5 or 6 kids were yelling racial slurs out the window and joking amongst themselves in the back of the bus. I had never heard language like that before. After moving to the North Carolina in the 1980's and comparing my experiences with
my cousin's in Northern New Jersey, it became clear that the North is every bit as racist as the south. The difference is hypocrisy. NYC had slaves in the city doing
work in the 1600's. Boston's wealth was founded on the
slave trade. All those ships that were needed to be built for it and who were the people sailing to Africa to pick up
the slaves? Northerners. Everyone has blood on their hands. The true difference is that in the South white and
black culture combined to become Southern culture. The north does not have this. The racism in California, Illinois or the north east is worse than the south today. There is an old saying about the difference in racism between the south and north which probably still applies to the north. "In the south it don't matter how close you are just don't get too high. In the north it don't matter how high you get just don't get too close."
1
Virginia: making Mississippi look good since 2019.
Somewhere Roy Moore is planning to move to Virginia and run for office.
6
So, we're surprised that there is still racism in Virginia? This is one of the places where the Civil War is still commonly referred to as "The War of Northern Aggression."
15
I’m an FFV (for the uninitiated a ‘First Family Virginian’, my ancestor the first sheriff of Virginia Beach). I’m also an Army brat whose been all over - I lived in Alabama for 15 years and for the past 20 in Boston. I left Alabama because I thought the racism too objectionable to swim in day to day so imagine my surprise when I move to Boston only to find it more racist than ‘Bama and dare I say, by a country mile. Folks in the depth South have been forced to more honestly and authentically reckon with this topic. Virginia like Boston puts on airs of finery, scholastics and history rather than own the tawdry mud hut of their soul that is racism.
25
@Courtney Hopkins
Racism is endemic to American history and culture no matter where you stand on the map -- and until we recognize this as a nation, these same kind of incidents will continue to occur.
5
I grew up in northern VA in the 80s and had a very different experience than what is being discussed on these pages. I remember meeting Gov. Wilder when I was 7 or 8 years old as my dad was very active in democratic politics at the time. Growing up outside DC, it’s not that I didn’t think racism existed, but I had friends and schoolmates and neighbors of every race, ethnicity, national origin. So much diversity and it was really celebrated or at least I look back on most of it fondly. Of course looking back you realize all the dynamics you didn’t fully understand as a kid and teenager. But I think it is true that Virginia is adding population steadily in northern VA with more diversity and more liberal politics, but that these same “northerners” aren’t ever taught the full history of the state and the legacy of racism that we inherit merely by living in the state even if our families aren’t from there. Absolutely more education, reckoning, history lessons, and reconciliation are needed so that northern VA and newcomers don’t feel like it’s not their problem too. It’s really America’s problem.
8
Having lived in VA for 25 years, I personally witnessed the stages of eliminating widespread cultural racism that is mostly due to the continued growth and maturity of each subsequent generation, the enactment and enforcement of laws, and leaders pushing society down a better path from Lincoln to MLK and beyond.
--Being openly racist with malice. Most of VA was over that by the time I moved there in 1989.
--Being openly racist without malice because it's part of the accepted norm of society. There was still some of this in my early years there and that's the time period related to the latest revelations.
--Realizing that racist optics and speech are hurtful and wrong. Though attitudes may persist internally, they are withdrawn from open display out of political correctness. It seemed that by around 2000 this stage had taken hold in VA.
--Not having feelings of ill will based on race or other demographic trait. We still have a long way to go but as we approach 2020 it seems each new generation gets closer to that ideal and that is a big part of what 21st Century Virginia is founded upon.
It's a painfully slow process especially for the victims of racism. The Virginia I moved from in 2015 was not the same Virginia I moved to in 1989. Despite continued failures on the individual level by some, I think most of us can see the collective change in VA. I believe the outrage and dialog of recent days further demonstrates that things are moving in the right direction.
7
I used to travel to Richmond for work and now live in Florida
The mythology of Southern charm doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny
It’s really a facade for passive aggressive behavior.
And based on interactions with the younger good old boys down here we are still generations away from real change.
14
My free-person of color ancestors were in Virginia before, during and after the American Revolution. They fought on the side of the rebels.
My earliest known European American ancestor was born in London in 1613. He was married in Lancaster County the Virginia colony in 1640 where he died in 1670. Two of my white ancestors served with and knew George Washington during the American Revolution.
5
This is not a Virginia issue or an American issue this is a human issue. Too many men Are being allowed to get away with cave-man-like behavior of ”establishing dominance“ over women. The idea that men can dominate women in any way purely by dominance that is physical or institutional is destroying our society. Every time i hear about an esteemed female professional woman being subjugated by pigheaded men it disgusts me in large part because a part of me becomes ill - sometimes violently - because deep down, I know that men have been suppressing and oppressing women in similar ways for 10s of thousands of years and it makes me sick to my stomach. It’s enough. I think a big part of the strength of the me too movement is that women have had enough of this so deeply and psychologically embedded behavior. It’s enough. It’s got to stop.
5
Virginia needs its own "truth and reconciliation" commission to deal with its racist history. To start with they need to remove all the public symbols of their racist past by demolishing every statue to a Confederate general or soldier who committed treason by fighting to secede from the union and to preserve slavery. They also should consider changing their brutal seal and motto "sic semper tyrannis" which was uttered by John Wilkes Booth when he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. To resolve the controversy surrounding the Jim Crow era racism employed by Gov. Ralph Northam, Attorney General Mark Herring, and state senator Thomas Norment Jr. they should have the state "Ethics Advisory Council" render a decision on the seriousness of these offenses and determine whether or not they require the parties to resign. Virginia was the site in Prince Edward County of one the major civil rights cases that ended school segregation in the 1954 Brown decision in1954. But before that, Richmond, the state capital, was the capital of the Confederacy and their native son, Robert E. Lee, led the forces of secession and it is where he finally surrendered. It's time for Virginia finally to end the Civil War and its racist heritage by casting aside the symbols of slavery and segregation and set an example for the other states of the Old Confederacy to repudiated the sin of the 19th century and join the 21st century.
6
For those Americans with a fragile sense of history, it might serve them well to remember that Virginia was not only the seat of the Confederate States of America, but Richmond was its capitol, so these recent events seem to have come full circle.
However at the same time it should also be remembered that Virginia is by no means the exception when it comes to exemplifying the scourge of racism and all the ways in which it manifests itself, because the problem is far deeper than that -- in fact it is part of the greater American psyche that has been hidden away and denied for what it is, which is why those wounds have never healed.
It makes no difference if it was a Democrat or a Republican prancing abut in 'Blackface' thirty days or thirty years ago, because the effect is still the same for African-Americans who are forced to relive the degradation of a slave past that denied them the full rights of humanity.
There are lessons to be learned from these recent events, let us all hope for the sake of unity in our nation that we have finally learned them.
3
Yes, Virginia's segregationist past was shameful and racism has not been erased here or anywhere else in America, but Virginia is far ahead of all other southern states in adopting progressive policies, led by modern-day Democrats and a brave Republican governor (Linwood Holton) of an earlier time. Judge it not by a "Massachusetts," but by its southern peers. If the current three top government officials leave office because of "scandal," it will fall back into the hands of the modern-day conservative class (Republicans) who have held blacks "down"since Reconstruction. A disaster for Virginia and for people of good-will everywhere.
9
This is pretty thin stuff and generally ignorant of what has actually transpired in Virginia over the past few decades. The state is more than one thing, with the greatest concentration of people living in a swath of congestion running from Northern Virginia into the rapidly-changing Richmond suburbs and then east to Hampton Roads. In this space you will find as much diversity as anywhere in the country and the greater portion arrived here from somewhere else. You may think Harry Byrd has something to do with all these folks, but that only makes for good copy. There's little of that left and it mostly resides in rural Virginia, which is stalled economically and socially. So these generalizations, based on something labeled "Virginia" are inaccurate. By the say, Goldman is from New York and got lucky with a very talented candidate in 1989 -- a candidate who subsequently proved to be one of the worst governors of Virginia's 20th century.
2
I'm saddened to see authors Martin and Burns fall into the same old mistake of mentioning poor whites as if a dismissive afterthought and far lesser inclusion in the central point they try to make. We're just going to repeat the old history endlessly as long as the main point, which is class warfare and now only incidentally racist, is not acknowledged.
So I guess Virginians are not the only ones to fall into the same old pattern, re-creating the old in their failure to understand what the real issues have always been: the framers never intended the Constitution to be for anyone but themselves, with anything more being, as I mentioned, incidental and convenient (for which they would gladly take credit, it being politically astute to do so). And so it goes.
1
To pretend that things weren't far different 30 years ago than they are today is being naive. Jokes and behavior considered acceptable we now find appalling. People need to admit what was done in the past and apologize before we can move on. To pretend it didn't happen will just make it fester.
4
I don't know - I want to remember Virginia for Th. Jefferson.
In his extensive "Notes on on the State of Virginia" he discusses many issues including religious freedom and condemning ownership of slaves.
But I thought this quote - snipped from a larger one - wants me to believe what Th. Jefferson's Virginia could have been:
"... But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”...
1
I am a northerner who moved to Virginia in the late 1980's, and have been quite aware all of this time of its troubled `Southern' history. (Racism is a big problem all over our country, but the history of the South is special.)
However 30 year old pictures in yearbooks, as ugly as they are, obviously can't reflect change that has happened here the last 30 years. There really has been an ever greater awareness of our racism problem (not by all, but by many), though all of these photos are a reminder of how pervasive these attitudes were even two decades after the civil rights movement of the 60's.
4
If Virginia wants to evolve beyond 19th century racist stereotypes, they need to (among other things) stop celebrating the birthdays of confederate generals.
I live in Northern Virginia. Some folks try to excuse the statues and holidays commemorating confederate traitors by saying "That's our heritage". I can tell you that this posturing is definitely *not* my heritage, nor is it something for others to be proud of.
7
I went to high school in Fairfax County, VA (Alexandria), in the early 80's, and am not surprised by this at all, sadly. It disgusted and shocked me back then, and was my first realization that these were young people, my age, who were so callous, ignorant, and insular. I had never actually heard the "n" word spoken before I moved there. When we moved into DC, I learned that many of my classmates and friends had never been there and would never because it was majority black. I think many of them are still that way. I was so glad we moved out of VA.
2
I hope my comment is understood, for I have no disagreement with the article, but please understand that Virginia is also the state of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Yes, they were slave owners. But where would our magnificent but flawed nation be today without their brilliance, foresight and willingness to sacrifice for all of us?
4
Virginia still has a long way to come—especially outside of NoVA. These disclosures are just the tip of the iceberg. I do think Virginia is in a much better place than 30-40 years ago, but there are still racism.
2
Racism exists across the country, not just in VA.
If we don't accept that folks made mistakes 30 years ago, then we leave no room for change and growth.
And you wonder why folks complain about 'political correctness.'
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stood yesterday, but where he stands today."
6
I accepted a 2 year transfer with my job to Western Virginia, specifically Roanoke from 2011/13. I witnessed weekly occurrences of my driving pickup trucks flying very large Confederate battle flags every weekend. In the fall if you drove out of the city to view the spectacular fall color, inevitably you would drive past houses displaying the flag on the front porch. With such overt flag displays only a few years ago, this news about the current elite political powers that be in Richmond does not surprise me in the least. Sadly change just seems to come too slowly for me.
11
These latest manifestations maybe in Virginia, but have no illusions that any vestige of racial bias is exclusive to the state. However, as the former Capital of the Confederacy, Richmond bears more burden than most to acknowledge it's past. Acknowledging the shared past of this country will bring greater awareness and sensitivity. The main issue in all of this seems to be forgiveness. As a country we need to practice this often, but i it seems for it to fully happen, we also need to ensure greater equality to those who have had the least opportunities.
11
When I was an undergrad history major at the University of Virginia, I had to read Edmund Morgan’s seminal work, American Slavery, American Freedom (a couple times, I think). It blew my mind then, and over 40 years after its publication his thesis is still being borne out by the events of today in Virginia, and the nation. Morgan wrote that the economic and social conditions that allowed for the growth of a self-governing colony into a new kind of democratic republic were inextricably bound up with the development of race-based slavery, thanks to the careful institutionalization of status along racial lines. So inextricably, in fact, they are still tragically and painfully connected 400 years later. Or as Faulkner (I think) says, “the past isn’t dead; it even even past.” Virginia is a commonwealth with “ample self-regard” (that phrase made me smile), but one that also made me confront the origins of our country and the notion of status in a very immediate way—an education for which I will always be grateful.
23
@AkDubs Excellent comment. It actually explains a lot about Venezuela, too. Spain built most of South America on slavery and some countries are still paying the price. The Faulkner quote is, "the past is never dead. It's not even past."
6
I think the majority of Americans were shocked to see the extent of racism while President Obama served us. Most of us thought, that because some overt racism symbols were illuminated - like Aunt Jemima and Sambo's restaurant - that racism was being eradicated.
I was shocked in the early 1990s when I went back to University to get a degree to learn that one of my classmates in a Race, Class and Gender program - a beautiful, professional, smart black woman - was questioned by police the night before as she was waiting for the bus for possible "prostitution". I cannot even imagine the humiliation of it. I did happen to know a man who was a member of the Seattle Vice squad at the time who bragged about picking up prostitutes and letting them go if they had sex. It's sick beyond comprehension.
Fortunately many of us have become more educated and aware because of the courageous women and men and of color who climbed the difficult ladder to success and speak out in many ways about the atrocities they suffer.
I love the movies, "Black KKK" and "Green Book" because they both show that WE THE PEOPLE can learn to understand and respect people of other colors - if we try.
Let's Do It!
26
Upon becoming an American citizen I gave my first vote to Wilder. That was more than 30 years ago; has so little changed?
13
I lived in Richmond as a young man during the Wilder era. At the time, the struggle of Richmonders like me was trying to live as a musician and artist in a city that to my eyes seemed incredibly segregated, with a system that seemed designed to not allow us to be successful. Beautifully restored historic neighborhoods were bordered by dilapidated slums. Business owners we tried to deal with looked at us with contempt. I remember a lot of annoyed double-takes from men in golf shirts who didn't like my long hair and lack of stereotype masculinity. Music venues were shut down by endless code violations that no one could seem to keep up with. The University of Richmond was known to many as the University of Rich Men, where well-off parents sent their daughters in hopes of marrying them into continued wealth. I remember Wilder seemed to give us hope, but it was obvious he was hated by conservatives, all of whom seemed determined to keep in place their system of subtle segregation, "polite" racism, and social mores and customs that didn't seem too far removed from the joint barbeque thrown by Twelve Oaks and Tara. The present crisis in Virginia has brought back memories of that time; I see nothing has really changed -- it's just been disguised more cleverly, until now.
24
I grew up in North Carolina in the 1940s and 1950s. Lived under the burden of segregation. Was always aware that I was a second class citizen. I am now almost 80, and still angry about it.
57
I appreciate the focus on Virginia because of these recent incidents, but this is not a Virginia thing. It's about America and the need we have to confront our past and its legacies.
88
@gracie
What does “confront” mean? Be aware of it and talk about it?know it? Harass people who interpret it or value it differently? After telling me what it means tell me why it is needed?
@gracie
Amen.
The first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown the Virginia colony in 1619. Africans remained enslaved in Virginia until 1865. Among Virginia's " Great Enslavers" were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and Robert Lee.
4
I was CEO of a hospital in three years in Tidewater VA. This news does not come as a surprise to me........not at all!
31
Hmm. Certainly the week’s issues are in the news and topical, and therefore an appropriate subject for reporting. At the same time, one could create a similar catalog of shameful racial incidents for every state. The NYT would do well to acknowledge this, both directly and in its tone. The article notes that Gov. Wilder was elected in 1989. What year did New York State elect its first black governor?
49
@moteandbeam " The article notes that Gov. Wilder was elected in 1989. What year did New York State elect its first black governor?"
In 1838, Frederick Douglass escaped slavery from Virginia's next-door slave state, Maryland, and immediately made his way to New York City, where he first found himself on "free soil". In a letter he wrote soon after reaching New York, he said: 'I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions.'
Nine years later, he was living upstate, publishing his abolitionist newspaper the North Star.
What was going on with black people in Virginia during those and the ensuing years?
1
@TRF, I think the point was that Northerners and the East Coast media often smear the southern states’ history of overt racism while ignoring the clear racism in the North (often theoretically santized by a rubber glove of captism). Just because conditions are worse somewhere else doesn’t mean they haven’t been bad here too.
1
I lived in southern Virginia for six years in the 1970-80s, and the racism there was no worse than in New York or Boston. But Virginians refused to confront it or admit to it. Who can blame them? So much of their image is wrapped up in "Mr. Jefferson," George Washington, Monticello and Mount Vernon...all the aristocratic trappings of the birth of American democracy.
And the white Virginians I knew prided themselves on the great relationship they had with "the blacks," how their childhood housekeeper was like one of the family, how they'd go out to their daddy's hunting lodge and drink whiskey with the black gamekeeper. He was such a dear old friend!
But if you spoke to African-American Virginians, you got a different story, one of belittling and drudgery and disrespect.
When they abolish Lee Jackson Day, I'll believe things are finally changing.
72
@Elizabeth A You may not like what others revere, but asking them to forsake their values is rude and selfish.
As an example, "Why don't you take down that statue, in the city park? That war was a long time ago and it just stirs up hateful memories."
On the flip side, "Those boys were just wearing a costume for Halloween. They didn't mean any harm."
The reason most people find some history so disagreeable, they can't change it.
I moved to Virginia from a Yankee state as a teenager in the 90s, back when there was no Martin Luther King Jr Day in Virginia. It was *charmingly* called Lee Jackson King Day. I remember still -- all these years later --laughing because I thought the name was a joke. More fool me. The fact that for the last nineteen years Lee and Jackson have had a day of celebration of their own is a public statement that the racism of the past is still alive and thriving in Virginia.
3
These rumblings jogged my memory of my mid-1980s encounter with Virginia when I began graduate school at the University in Charlottesville.
I registered at the Main Street Howard Johnson’s and began calling numbers, looking for an apartment or a room to rent.
“Master ____,” a quavering, distinctly Southern voice greeted me on the phone, and the elderly woman politely informed me that her tenant would probably be moving out shortly.
I was startled to say the least. In retrospect, I should have immediately headed back north to my native country and researched another graduate program.
Still, I enjoyed my years in Charlottesville, its milder climate, running, golf at Birdwood and Swannanoa, and tennis at the University’s many tennis courts.
Northern Virginia—McLean, Alexandria, Arlington—is a state apart, with higher GDP, better schools, better educated population, greater diversity.
You have Monticello (Jefferson) and Montpelier (Madison).
Farther south (Lynchburg, Roanoke, Blacksburg, Danville), you will see men driving around in pickup trucks with gun racks. And, of course, a little farther south, in North Carolina, you have the headquarters of the KKK.
Virginia’s racialist history runs deep. But many of the old guys are passing on.
Still, Unite the Right did hold its rally in Charlottesville and on university grounds. Not a single faculty member denounced the rally on national television—not that I saw. Perhaps Larry Sabato made an appearance.
I wonder why.
13
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Republicans are going to be doing every single thing they possibly can to disenfranchise people of color in every single state.
of course that absolutely does not excuse any of the behavior of these Democrats in Virginia.
but it also does not absolve the behavior of the Republicans for their use of race as a boogeyman around every corner.
Governor Paul LePage of Maine, which is very much a northern State, made several nasty racially-charged comments. yet he remained an office with hardly a whisper about his behavior. why aren't politicians on both sides being held accountable for their behavior?
60
I've lived my whole life in MA and my ancestors are from MA and ME. I am discovering that ignorance to the race problems in this country is no longer acceptable. When others are treated as less than, we all lose out. I think of where we could all be if equality was practiced in whole.
45
@Lydia
I agree! So what are you going to do to stand up against anti-white quotas and "diversity hiring" at corporations and public universities?
How much have you campaigned to do away with affirmative action?
Have you donated to any politician or even called one to try and depose the racist disparate impact law?
Perhaps whites will believe in "equality" when the people claiming to be for it practice what they preach instead of push anti-white policies at every turn.
1
Ugh! This is why we have so far to go, still! You can think of these as "anti-white", if you want, but it's only because we've been blatantly and subversively "pro-white" for too long. These policies and practices are to counteract the inflated importance and respect that white people are given, unearned, and treated with, undeservingly, simply due to the color of our skin; and to require that we give non-white people an equal degree of status, importance, opportunity, dignity, freedom, and respect. If you want to think of it as "anti-white" or losing, that's a problem you will have to resolve within yourself. I have no problem "losing" - or giving up - something I shouldn't have to begin with; especially when it's given to me at the expense of others who should never have had it taken from them. I, for one, long for the day when we truly don't need institutional measures to counter these inequities (and often hostilities). Then, and only then, will we have attained actually equality. But we are still far, very far, apparently, from there.
2
As a resident of the much-ridiculed Garden State, I don't wish Virginians any ill. I like Virginia, but I also think it is probably good that "the state’s ample self-regard has suffered blow after blow." For too long white Virginians have looked down on other Southerners. They need to look in the mirror instead.
19
Hold it! New York has never elected a black Governor (Patterson was appointed after Spitzer resigned), but way back in the 1980's, Virginia elected its first black Governor, Wilder.
How many statewide (not district) black officials have been elected in Northern states such NJ, and Conn. for instance? That should tell us that Virginia is way ahead of many so-called liberal states on race.
Virginia is a wonderful state with many honest, hard-working people, some of whom may be arch-conservatives, but they are generally respectful that is why "Virginia is for Lovers."
21
@Isle "How many statewide (not district) black officials have been elected in Northern states such NJ, and Conn. for instance? That should tell us that Virginia is way ahead of many so-called liberal states on race."
No doubt, the demographics of these states has much to do with this.
@Isle - take a look at 2018 election results. It's happening. It's taken too long, but it's happening. Let's make sure it's not just a blip.
@Isle
I don't think racism goes away because Virginia elected a black governor anymore than electing Obama meant the end of racism. Racism is part of the American fabric as is sexism and hatred and fear of immigrants, even though the majority of us were immigrants. We pride ourselves on being a generous, tolerant people, but often we are hypocritical, cruel, and dishonest in our denials of reality. "Virginia is for lovers" is a tourism slogan, right? Racism does change and can be lessened or kept under control with vigilance, education, and opportunities to study, work, and live with people of different backgrounds. Unfortunately, our current president and his racist administration normalizes racist behavior.
1
I'm truly saddened to discover racism has no party allegiance.
8
@Bradley
Discover? You once thought it did? Amazing!
The reference to "less-enlightened era"??? This happened in the 80's not the 40's or the 50's!!! This is the true shock and awe. Disgusting!
15
When you talk about the 1%, you tell ony part of the story. At the time only about 20% of Virginians were African Americans. He didn't run on race issues. What he promised was his support for a woman's right to choose and some action on gun control. Those two issues were as much a part of his close victory and maybe more than race. He was smart and he had years of experience in Virginia state politics. One of the first things he did was to prevent the sale of a state-owned railway line on the cheap to private interests. He kept his word on right to choose and he actually passed a gun purchase law that reduced the number of hand guns a person could buy to one in a month. instead of no limit. Until his bill passed, buyers from other states could come here and buy all the guns they wanted to sell on the streets of other states with much stricter laws. This was a time it was common to see gun racks on the back window of pickups in Virginia. To imply his narrow win was just because of race diminishes he what he stood for and why he was elected governor by the people of Virginia.
16
@Ron
"At the time only about 20% of Virginians were African Americans"
As of 2015 they were 19.7% of the population, so that seems to still be the case.
1
@Mike H.Interesting but but point is that to imply the reason that the election was so close was because of race is shallow. He had the courage to run on two very controversial promises. He would support the right to choose and gun control. Virginia was not only the the home of the Capital of the Confederacy. It was also the home of Gerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. The state was also filled with hunters.
1
As bad as the Northam photo and the Herring admission about black-face are, the history of extra-legal lynchings in the South and elsewhere is a more significant part of our historical legacy. If a Rodney King can be beaten to near death by police in Los Angeles, and many other Americans of color can be stopped, frisked, detained, and even imprisoned on the basis of false testimony, we have really deep systemic problems that have persisted since the first Europeans arrived in North America. It is a good thing that people are now upset and willing to call out people in leadership positions for their earlier insensitivity towards people of color but not enough. Some say circle the wagons and burrow deep in traditionalist sentiment. Others say, it’s past; let’s move on. And yet the fact remains that people of color in our society are still “marked” in the eyes of law enforcement, employers, and some political leaders. Public awareness of our history of racism and violence against people of color is important and should be sustained through public debates and discussions about how all of us can improve our communities for all Americans. And our school textbooks should not gloss over the ugly truths that encrust our history.
Our greatness rests on our ability to expose prejudice and bigotry and to chastise and expel elected leaders that present false fronts towards the electorate in their quest for power.
16
Virginia has an interesting history ranging from Alexandria's slave market/slave pens where human beings were sold like vegetables at a farmer's market, to Arlington's "segregation wall," to closing the public schools during the 1950s instead of desegregating them as required by law. One can explore the history of the south and the nation as a whole through the history of Virginia.
35
It is written that the English forefathers did not consider its slaves as anything more than chattel, not as a human being with rights at all. The Spanish treated its slaves in North America as fully possessing human rights and were treated with justice.
2
@Rolloffdebunk - that's a nice thought, but I don't think anyone who owns slaves is truly acting as if the enslaved people possessed human rights and were given justice. It's antithetical to owning another human being.
3
@Rolloffdebunk
Well, not “fully” but specified rights were protected by law in Spanish North America, including the right to earn one’s money and purchase one’s own manumission at a “fair” price.
1
Just stopped at a gas station outside the beltway on Lee Jackson highway run by a MAGA hat-wearer who decorates the inside of his repair shop with a life-sized cutout of Trump standing across the room from a wall poster with a man in a cowboy hat carrying a rifle to "hunt vegans" and a window sign notifying all who enter that they're in red-neck country.
Yep, we all know by now that racism, white supremacy, and a distorted conservatism are alive and well in Virginia. But it's also clear that progressive movements to establish racial justice recently have gained force.
Certainly Mark Herring (despite past transgression) and Justin Fairfax (despite alleged transgression) represent this wave. Northam, too, although with greater fragility.
And the in-your-face irony of ousting all three from office is that it puts the state right back in the hands of those who will create greater security for systemic racism.
It means handing control of state state government back to those who believe in glorifying the Confederate past, expunging voter rolls, curtailing health care--especially for women, and promoting all sorts of horrors in the name of Christianity. And more.
But failure to oust any or all of them implicitly excuses hurtful, ignorant, unacceptable behaviour.
It's going to take a while to figure out the greater good here and to look honestly at what values from the past are worth saving and what needs profound uprooting.
38
@Nereid - I'm feeling confident if a deep dive is done into the #3 person in line to take over, the Republican, that there will be something disqualifying in his past. It seems that the 80's in Virginia was seeped in racism. Just give it time.
Now, who is #4? How far down the list can we go? Maybe it's time for a special election.
As a descendant of Virginians who grew up in Maryland, I loved the sentence about the state's ample self-regard.
16
Lest we forget, Woodrow Wilson was tied to the Klan and the Southern Democrats prior to WW II were separatist, to say the least.
Why the big fuss now?
2
@leaningleft
The "big fuss now" is important in addressing persistent racism buried in many nooks and crannies of our society. Wilson was a racist Virginian who rose to the highest office in the land. We should not forget that when he took the country into World War I, he also urged Congress to pass the Espionage Act (still in effect) and to limit freedom of speech while intimidating journalists, newspaper editors, and outspoken critics of his administration. Today, millions of us can gain information about the attitudes of elected leaders that might otherwise remain opaque while they exercise unearned privileges and power. And we can openly debate different views on contemporary manifestations of racism, sexual harassment, and denigration of individuals and groups that speak out about the abuse of power. Let's hope we never have to fear another President Wilson and his up-and-locked attitudes on race and freedom of speech.
16
@leaningleft prior to WWII? Try prior to 1975, at least!
1
Yes, shame on these guys but what about interpreting these disgraceful cases as a reminder that there are so many of us in this society who refuse to face up to their past? This probably goes for people in every state, ethnic group, economc class, and corporation.
23
Very true. Most Northern states have horrific history in their past and current treatment of their Native American peoples.
8
the day of reckoning has come
1
Racist “history”? Ha ha ha.
We still live with it in the present, in a felon disenfranchisement clause from the early 1900s explicitly designed to remove African Americans from the voting rolls and still used to devastating effect.
We live with it in the state’s long refusal to expand Medicaid under ACA (even as it would also help poor Virginians of all races) and in numerous other laws and policies that put black and brown and poor whites in Virginia at a disadvantage. Virginia is for lovers, but trust there’s hate here.
Yes, the scandals of the past week are embarrassing. But please also remember the policy violence that is racist in nature and taking place right now!
27
@JB
No doubt history is not past and there is work in the present, but note that 200k+ citizens were re-enfranchised by executive order granted under same state constitution by governor McAuliffe (D). The was a major issue in the 2017 gov campaign, and Northam (D) will likely continue this policy. Governor Northam (D) campaigned on and pushed for Medicaid expansion, which will benefit around 400k citizens. Legislation passed last year, with the new eligibility requirements taking effect last month.
6
@JB
Abuse such as this of the “racist” charge to slander people with policy disagreements are why I ignore the accusation. No, not ignore, but rather take it as a concession that you are unable to articulate any substantial reasoned objection and that you likely have nothing worthy of attention to say.
So when people say “Trump is a racist!” , I hear “I disagree with Trump but can’t articulate good objective reasons”.
A friend that lives in Richmond told me that Virginia became a southern state once you left the suburbs of DC in northeast Virginia.
He said that's 2.5 million people.... so that's a lot of 'blue' to mix in with the 'red'.
He thinks that explains some of what's going on now.
Or was he missing something?
5
Perhaps even more than its racism, it's the hypocrisy of Virginia's somewhat hereditary ruling class that's been dragged into the light. That's going on right now.
22
I grew up in Virginia but, when old enough to make my own decisions, moved to California permanently. As someone who works in politics, I didn't want to have to spend moral capital kowtowing to the tobacco lobby and kissing the hands of the not-quite-dead Confederate "heroes." In high school one of my white teachers lamented that the Civil Rights leaders had "moved too quickly" and so disrupted traditional Southern culture. A co-worker of my dad vehemently opposed Reagan's making MLK day a national holiday. When I go back to VA to visit my elderly mother, I feel at home in places like Arlington, but much further South things quickly deteriorate racially. It's a shame because the mountains and forests of the Commonwealth are beautiful.
38
@Joel F. As a former Richmonder I agree that the state is beautiful and I was saddened at having to leave that, as it seemed to me I was being deliberately kept from opportunity because I was not a native or descendant of some Confederate hero and was not tied to some wealthy family, being only a second-generation American.
12
I have contemplated my various isms, hopefully I have gotten better. I believe a lot of people look back on their thoughts and actions with occasional regret.
10
I think it's easy to blame the south or rural areas when racism bubbles up, but let's not forget how much this still is a national issue. From looking at the most segregated school districts, to the unspoken suburban codes, and the legacy of genocide across the west, we all, regardless of where we're from have room to improve our communities.
21
Courtesy of the state of Virginia, we all have refreshed our memories about the nation's racist history and youthful indiscretions that seem more than mildly-insensitive in retrospect. Yet, it is hard to think of anyone who accomplished more on race and inequality, both legislatively and as our nation's leader, than LBJ. Few remember or care that his personal history on such issues reflected his less-than-pure background as an early 20th century, rural, white Texan. It is time to turn attention to what Northam and his administration are doing to address economic and educational equality, racial profiling by law enforcement and, perhaps most important to Virginia, white supremacism and traitorous Confederate symbolism. If he comes up lacking there, calls for him to resign may be appropriate. If not, the possibility that a budding champion for human rights may be thrown under the bus in the name of purity.
30
I was born in New York City and I’ve lived in Virginia for more than 30 years. The people here are more honest and less racist than virtually any other place in the world, including Canada and Michigan. It’s sad about these politicians, but the state is at the forefront of self improvement.
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@Chris McClure
Yet they still cling to their traditions of bigotry and racism. So what is it then, nostalgia or stupidity? Lee Jackson day, blackface, KKK, indeed.
13
Reminding the public that images of racism persist is not a backwards step. It appears that we are in a transition point. It is no longer enough to denounce racism today, leaders must openly acknowledge their own flawed pasts and embrace change. The governor did not display true remorse or leadership when he changed stories. Given today’s reality, upfront contrition may not have been enough to save him. Progress will be made when we realize that many people did not choose to be born into a segregated society and that full erasure of someone’s past is too much to ask.
14
This is why I left Virginia--under the well-mannered talk of a "common-wealth" is the ugly blackface of racism. Northern Virginia should become its own state and leave the rest of the state to its belated Reconstruction.
11
I grew up in Pennsylvania and have lived in Virginia for the past 13 years. I believe this article gets it wrong - the recent embarrassments are evidence of Virginia actually trying harder than other places to modernize its image. Nowhere is that more evident than in Charlottesville. The reason the city tried to move its Confederate statues is that it's a modern, tech-heavy city and it didn't want to project a "backwards" image to the scholars and investors that establish themselves here. The right-wing protesters who were galvanized by this issue came primarily from out of state.
While this may seem to others as a Virginia-specific problem, states deeper in the South will have similar issues in the coming years as they come to terms with their past.
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@CW
All the states south of the Mason Dixon Line are still fighting the Civil War in one respect or another. The exception is Louisiana, where history is in full, proud display and people are not afraid to celebrate the best aspects of bygone cultures through the arts, tourism and just a general kiss ma grits attitude without the "bless your heart" hypocritical sweetness of the rest of the South. In my humble opinion, NOLA is the greatest city in this country. Maybe it's the Cajun influence that keeps it real. So, please, don't lump LA in with the rest of the South. Even in rural Lafayette, it's entirely different.
2
@CW
Maybe scholars and investors aren’t all the closed-minded bigots towards local history and heritage that they think they are?
Virginia still celebrates Lee Jackson day the Friday before MLK day and schools and state courts are closed. This should be barred by the US government. In addition, many VA schools hold classes on Martin Luther King Day. They should be fined. It’s a start.
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@SBC While I might like to see Virginia eliminate Lee Jackson Day, close schools on MLK day, and eliminate many symbols of the Confederacy, such changes will be most long-lasting if they come from Virginians rather than the Federal government.
2
@SBC
And finish with the concentration/re-education camps that should have been built in 1865. Yeah. I’ve this garbage before. The problem is that “a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”