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    Ralph Northam’s Mistake

    The Virginia governor’s main problem is not the particulars of his dalliances with racism, but the fact that they exist—and that they caught black voters unawares.
    by Vann R. Newkirk II Feb 04, 2019 5 minutes
    Source: Steve Helber / AP

    On Friday, faced with a photo on his medical-school yearbook page featuring one person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam apologized. By Saturday, he said he’d never taken the photo, never seen the yearbook, and didn’t even go to the party where it was taken, adding that a mix-up in the yearbook’s production must have created an error.

    Over the span of , Virginian voters saw the photos first disseminated by right-wing blogs, then confirmed by the mainstream press; discovered that one of Northam’s college nicknames was “Coonman”; saw him admit to and then deny wearing blackface or a Klan robe; and then saw him admit to once blackening his face with shoe polish to imitate Michael Jackson. During Saturday’s press conference, after a reporter asked whether Northam could do the moonwalk, he appeared to contemplate doing it at the podium.

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