Hmm, The Northam thing might be like Franken after all. Original story by former Brietbarter

[bitterross]

It seems the guy who broke the story about Northam is a former Brietbart employee. It will be interesting to see how this finally plays out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-tip-from-a-concerned-citizen-helps-a-reporter-land-the-scoop-of-a-lifetime/2019/02/03/e30762ea-2765-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.cb279b73b366

Howley said he is co-owner of Big League Politics, which he described as politically “independent.” He didn’t mention the site’s close connection to Republican and Virginia politics.

Big League Politics’ co-owners include Noel Fritsch, a consultant who worked for the campaign of Corey Stewart, a conservative, neo-Confederate sympathizer who unsuccessfully challenged Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) for his seat last year, and Reilly O’Neal, another consultant who worked for Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate who was accused by multiple women of harassment and child molestation.

In its short existence, the website has reliably boosted Trump, attacked Democrats and liberal figures and written many articles promoting a discredited conspiracy theory popular among far-right conservatives about the murder of a young Democratic National Committee staffer named Seth Rich in 2016.

[manor321]

1. JESUS MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST ON A STICK! It doesn't matter who found it.

[bitterross]

2. It matters if it really isn't him. /nt

[Tiggeroshii]

3. he admitted it was him before admitting this is a thIng he likes to do

even if it wasnt him. whether this was him or the michael jackson dress up was him, he should resign.

[bitterross]

37. Great Mischaracterization of what he said.

I was around in the 80's. If you dressed up a MJ and did the moonwalk it wasn't all that uncommon to darken you skin. It's not as if he said he likes to dress up every weekend and put on face paint.

Also, even if it is him, does his voting in the best interests and representation of African Americans count for nothing?

Everyone is all wound up over a picture of a person from 35 years ago. If it's him in the picture his actions/voting as a representative are not those of a racist person today.

But hey, let's not pay a bit of attention to what he's done for people lately. Let's focus on a picture from 35 years ago. That really matters now.

[Tiggeroshii]

45. He apologized for being in the picture

He admitted it. This is reprehensible that anybody should be defending him right now. If he was a Republican, every Democrat would be clamoring for his resignation.

[bitterross]

48. So no one ever gets forgiven and no one ever changes.

That's basically the position you are taking.

If he were a Republican he wouldn't be voting for the progressive causes that Northam has voted for.

If he were a Republican he'd be voting for voter ID and drug testing for welfare recipients and against women's rights.

And yes, I'd be calling for his resignation because I'd be pretty dang sure that, as a Republican doing those things, he was still a racist.

[Orangepeel]

4. Did brietbart plant the photo on his yearbook page 35 years ago?

Somebody else happened to stick a racist photo on his individual page, either accidentally or as a prank, and nobody he went to school with mentioned it for decades? That’s far-fetched.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. STUPID QUESTION

Everybody knows that some miscreant Republicans stole Doc Brown's DeLorean and went back to 1984 and forced him at gunpoint to wear blackface.

[guillaumeb]

7. Brilliant.

That explains everything.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Using Occam's Razor

Using Occam's Razor that is nearly as likely as Northam being factually innocent.

[guillaumeb]

13. Could this unnamed GOP operative have kidnapped Northam,

and forced him to pose in black face? And, hypnotized Northam so he would forget everything.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. There's a saying.

"If you don't want to be framed, don't be in the picture."

[bitterross]

8. I'm sure I'll get screamed at for this. But here it is anyway.

I grew up in the South in the same era as Northam. At that time and place those costumes were not considered racist. The fact the med school allowed it to be printed at all should let you know I'm telling the truth about this.

We had community fund-raisers called Minstrels. Shows in which the mayor and city council appeared. Some of them dressed in blackface. It wasn't seen as racist then. No one wrote letters to the editor and insisted on them being removed from office.

In today's world, yes, that would be very racist. In the past, it wasn't considered offensive.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. Stop bragging about how this shit "wasn't racist" in your part of the workd

back in the day. It was racist, and acting like it was no big deal erases the painful lived experience of black people.

[bitterross]

17. You forgot to use all caps

It is your choice to not believe me. I'm not lying though.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

64. I do believe that you believe that you and your white community did not consider those costumes

racist. I believe you when you say you had community fundraisers in blackface, and that some white participants did not see it as racist and that no one wrote letters to the editor.

But black people knew then that blackface minstrel fundraisers were racist. Black people saw it as offensive. Black people didn't write letters to the editor because the active violence of lynching and other physical attacks and the passive violence of segregation and social snubbing were a constant threat and constant reality that kept blacks "in their place."

I never said you were lying. Your reality is true. It just needs to be expanded to a wider perspective, a deeper understanding.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. I lived in FL from 1970-2012

I never saw blackface or Klansmen except on tv.


When I was a kid I found a discarded black lawn jockey. I just realized all these years later my dad painted his face white.

[DonCoquixote]

28. OK I'll bite

Mr. Northam at some point decided to go into politics, 2007 to be exact. Now, anyone who goes into politics knows your dirty laundry and last deeds can be called into account. Of course, he had more than 25 years deal with the fallback, plenty of time to be public, to work with African Americans, to at the very least NOT vote for George W Bush.

He did none of that. Indeed, he tried to avoid ding it even as he knew there was a potential time bomb. he only dealt with it when he was caught, and even then tried to deny the fact.

The point is, it might have been "the past", but part of the reason we correct mistakes made in the past is because we do not want to repeat them again. That is the difference between a baby spoiling his diapers and a grown person going to the bathroom. If he wanted to assume office, he needed to deal with his past, and frankly, still does.

[njhoneybadger]

30. You have to admit his response was pretty lame

[cyclonefence]

52. "At that time and place those costumes were not considered racist."

Well, that settles that. Now all you unforgiving black folk just move along now and stop whining.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

66. At what, calling out the whites-only perspective when I see it? Glad you're reading along.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

69. Absolutely I do! And if I were to run for any office, you can be sure I would reach out to any of

the communities affected to let them know I have those incidents in my past. Ideally, I would have been involved in bridge-building and involvement in those communities already, so I could work with people I already knew rather than springing these issues on people I didn't know. I would assemble a top-notch crisis communication team and provide a list of these incidents as part of my exploratory campaign, and map out a strategy of what to do with those issues. And once we announced and started working for party and union endorsements, I would want to be as transparent as possible about those incidents.

And so on. It's a lot of work! Unlearning white supremacy, undoing damage and earning trust is all hard work. It's not surprising that white people who run for office overlook it and think that good intentions will do the work for them.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

55. Blackface was pretty fucking tabboo in the 80s.

I grew up in FL in the 80s. Some straight bullshit you’re slinging.

[Midnightwalk]

59. By who

Maybe you mean it wasn’t considered by some white people. I was in my 20s in the 80s in NYC and i would have found it racist. I read other white southerners in these discussions saying they would have also thought it racist.

However, my main point is that black people must have considered it racist. I think you glossed over that.

[delisen]

63. Hopefully you forcefully defended the Central Park 5 teenagers

who were horribly railroaded into jail on no evidence for an attack on a women -an attack they did not commit.

Or did you just keep reading the lying front pages of the New York Post and the Daily News or the full page ad in the N Y times paid for by that "developer billionaire" Donald Trump demanding their imprisonment- and nod your head in agreement that these 5 innocent African American and Hispanic teenagers needed to be put away for decades.

This wikipedia entry may job your memory:

On the night of the attack, five juvenile males – four African American and one Hispanic – were apprehended in connection with a number of attacks in Central Park committed by around 30 teenage perpetrators. The defendants were tried variously for assault, robbery, riot, rape, sexual abuse, and attempted murder relating to Meili's and other attacks in the park, based solely on confessions that they said were coerced and false. Before the trial, the FBI tested the DNA of the rape kit and found it did not match to any of the tested suspects. The office of District Attorney Robert Morgenthau presented these findings to the press as "inconclusive".[2] They were convicted in 1990 by juries in two separate trials. Subsequently, known as the Central Park Five, they received sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years. Four of the convictions were appealed and the convictions were affirmed by appellate courts. The defendants spent between 6 and 13 years in prison.

In 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and serial rapist in prison, confessed to raping the jogger, and DNA evidence confirmed his guilt.

[Midnightwalk]

67. Yeah i did

But not sure why that reply was to me? What did you think i said?

[Whiskeytide]

76. What you saw as a youth was still racially offensive. You only don't ...

... remember it that way because the audience for these shows - the people around you - accepted it and blew it off as not racist.

Stoning one’s wife for committing adultury use to be ok with you neighbors too. It was not ok. And the people who did it were still assholes.

I get your argument about people changing. But people who serve as dem politicians still have to be held to a high standard. The other side doesn’t really have such standards. That’s a big part of why they are them, and we are us.

[Dorian Gray]

79. Oh

it was seen as racist back then. By the people who were being mimicked. Just fewer white people cared or thought about the racism of it all.

[qazplm135]

80. I've lived in the South...during that time

and as a black man let me clue you in on something...IT WAS FUCKING RACIST THEN TOO!

[Iggo]

9. Maybe they used the same time machine that we used to plant Obama's birth announcement.

Didn't think of that, did ya.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. Your zinger is better than mine

[Ms. Toad]

29. He acknowledges he wore blackface in med school.

Whehter that particular photo captured his behavior or not is not really relevant. It is the behavior that is troubling - not the fact that somoene happened to get a photo of it.

[bitterross]

44. He acknowleges he dressed up as Micheal Jackson.

If you want to talk about what is and isn't relevant why isn't anyone talking about his voting record and his representation of African Americans in this century?

No one seems to care he consistently votes in the best interests of African Americans NOW, in this day and age. The man is not a 25-year-old college student anymore. It shouldn't be that difficult to allow for the possibility he's a different person than he was 35 years ago.

But, hey, let's not do anything objective. Like look at his current record. No, let's get hung up on a picture from 35 years ago.

[Ms. Toad]

46. There are two separate questions

1. The behavior in med school
2. What he has done since then

Please stop trying to minimize his behavior in med school. He isn't trying to minimize it - your insistence that it really wasn't anything, or really wasn't bad, does not support his efforts to make amends for his behavior - and it is offensive to POC.

As to the second - I believe in redemption. It starts with acknowledgement and a sincere, unconditional apology. I believe he has done that.

Beyond that it requries (from my perspective) becoming a true advocate (as Obama did with LGBT rights, once he recognized the error of his earlier ways). Northam appears to have a solid record of supporting civil rights - but he also has a significant period as an adult when he supported Bush. I'm not a Virginia resident so I don't know his record in minute detail. I agree it is a good conversation to have. But it is a separate conversation from the point I was addressing - minimizing his behavior in med school.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

47. Wouldn't he have more time to heal as a private citizen?

[Ms. Toad]

49. As governor, however, he has a bully pulpit

As someone just identified as (and admitting to) engaging in racist behavior, he could play a very valuable role in leading public conversations about listening, learning, reconciliation, and redemption.

I'm not invested in it one way or another - but I do see potential benefits in siezing the moment to begin some real conversations about race, and potentially make some real change. If he slinks off into the sunset, the story fades, and it may be an opportunity lost.

[crazycatlady]

78. difference is Obama has no homophobic actions in his past

He might have not initially agreed with marriage equality, but he was not a member of the Westboro Baptist Church. He was not using terms like 'man on dog.' Michelle Obama never worked for a school that banned LGBT kids.

[Ms. Toad]

82. Inviting the raging homophobe Rick Warren to share the inaugural stage with him WAS homophobic.

It is equivalent to a white president inviting David Duke to share his inaugural stage - and I'm pretty sure you would find that racist.

[Blues Heron]

54. That's him in the Klan suit isn't it. You're covering for him

why

[pandr32]

61. No

The guy in the hood is too short. If he was either one it would be the blackface.

[whathehell]

60. Will people PLEASE stop saying he was a "college student" at

the time if the photo?....
He was a 25 year old medical student, who did, btw, go by the nickname "coonman". I mean, seriously?

[brush]

41. Are you serious? How does one miss the point by so much?

Unlike the Roger Stone ginned up hit jpb on Franken, this blackface scandal is true and made wors by Northram revealing yet another blackface incident in his pass.

DO NOT EQUATE THEM.

[pnwmom]

56. He wore blackface to imitate Michael Jackson. So he did wear blackface. Case closed.

His only hesitation is he wasn't sure how many TIMES he did it. He was sure about the dance contest, but not sure about the party. But he DID know that he was careful to not use very much shoe polish at the dance contest because he knew how hard that stuff is to remove. He said.

[MFM008]

77. He did admit he went blackface

to do Michael Jackson.
Extremely poor judgement.

[McCamy Taylor]

22. Even if you write it in all capitals, it very much natters who wants to divide and conquer us.

No offense intended towards capital letters. They are important members of the Democratic Party.

[pnwmom]

57. But the fact that a right-winger dug this up doesn't excuse Northam.

Not anymore than if one of us proved Trump did something wrong.

[delisen]

65. Ae the Capital Letters related to the Capitol Steps

[njhoneybadger]

26. Exactly

[triron]

31. So what that dirt was dug up from 35 years ago anyway. I really don't give a sh...

Hillary was once a republican too. So what?

[earthside]

83. Julian Assange thanks you for your expression of approval.

Yes.

It does matter who finds these kinds of things; it matters if they are true; it matter how they are put out to the public.

[Sneederbunk]

6. Wondering how many Franken supporters are Northam condemners?

[McCamy Taylor]

23. Oh yes. Divide and conquer us some more.

[backabby-blue]

12. It doesn't matter.

It was there to find. He's a racist and needs to be gone.

[bitterross]

15. It does matter.

It matters if it isn't really him.

Why are you so sure he's a racist? One photo from 35 years ago is all you need to be convinced. Have you looked at his voting record? He's voted in the best interests of African Americans down the line.

He consistently voted against voter ID requirements. He voted against requiring drug testing for welfare recipients. He voted to increase minimum wage. He voted against the ultrasound requirements for women seeking an abortion. He voted against allowing adoption agencies to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. He voted for prohibiting discrimination in state employment based on sexual orientation.

If Northam was ever a racist and bigot, then his record clearly shows he isn't now. If he is a racist and bigot now, he's not a very good one with that record. A record that clearly favors the poor and disadvantaged. We all know that poverty and these laws he voted against disproportionately affect African Americans. And he voted on the side of African Americans every single time.

[Iggo]

19. The book says it's him. He said it was him. Then he said it wasn't him.

He's losing 2-1, and he's on both teams!

[bitterross]

20. So what if it is him? He's not allowed to change and grow?

You completely ignored the part of the post about his voting record. I know, it doesn't fit the narrative you support that he has to be a racist now if he was in that photo 35 years ago.

I know I'm not at all like the person who I was 35 years ago.

[DonCoquixote]

32. I know I'm not at all like the person who I was 35 years ago.

Because you took the time and effort NOT to be that person, the time and effort he is refusing to do.

[bitterross]

40. He consistently votes against GOP measures that would harm blacks.

Why the hell would he be doing that if he's a racist? If he were a racist back then it's pretty clear from his record he isn't now.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

58. He voted for Republicans until 2007.

His voting record my ass.

[DonCoquixote]

70. because he knows which way the wind blows

and the people who vted for him were mostly AA. However, that same wisdom should have told him to clean up his messes a few years back, rather than give ammo.

If I did nice thing for you, after you had gotten me into power, would that forguve me siding with peope that ate you? A silk collar is still a collar.

[triron]

33. Agree 100%

[bullwinkle428]

43. LOL at his voting record - he voted for Shrub and CHENEY twice!

I didn't trust him once I learned that back during the 2017 campaign, but didn't make a big deal of it, because you know DU - "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO SEE ED GILLESPIE ELECTED?"

A perfect example of a "hold my nose" vote, had I been a resident of Virginia.

[maxsolomon]

21. He denies it as of Sunday.

He says he's not either of the bigoted idiots in the photo.

[Iggo]

25. He admitted it as of Friday.

I found the admission to be more plausible than the denial.

[McCamy Taylor]

24. Bonus points to the first self identified Democrat who says "We got rid of Franken for the women

so now we have to get rid of Northam for the Blacks." And if it has already been posted some where on DU, please share it with all of us. Kindergarten politics is so much fun.

[nightwing1240]

35. Apples and Oranges

While I do believe Senator Franken was wrongly demanded to resign, you have to look at the context and time that his supposed wrong doing occurred. ie, the MeToo movement was growing and gaining momentum. Basically, a wrong place at the wrong time occurrence.
And, Senator Franken had long served admirably showing his true person.

However, Northam in blackface is intolerable at any time since it is overtly racist. First he apologies, then says it isn't him.

And to simply say he has to resign in order pander to African-American voters is outrageous. There us simply NO room in the Democratic Party for racists of any kind! Period!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

42. African Americans put him in office.

"so now we have to get rid of him for the blacks..."

-McCamy Taylor

Gillespie won 57 of the white vote. Northam won 87% of the African American vote. If not for the vote of the latter he would not be governor. The Klan's raison d'etre was to terrorize African Americans into not exercising their rights. Their methods included lynchings, flogging, and castration. As to blackface it was meant to infantalize and humiliate them.

African Americans are 13% of the population but supply Democrats with over 25% of their votes. In fact the last Democrat to win a plurality or majority of the white vote was Lyndon Baines Johnson. If not for people of color there would have been no President Jimmy Carter, no President Bill Clinton, and no President Obama.

You can't buy that kind of loyalty.

They are a vital Democratic constituency. Northam's blackface/Klansman shtick offended them, and now he has to go.


He was a Republican up until 2007. Given the grief he has caused it's almost as if he's a Republican plant.

[lunasun]

81. Yes almost 60% of whites went R for gov. Over 85% black went D for him -Kos had a good editorial imo

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=11769464
From the editorial in the link
“I see lots of white people saying they “forgive” Northam. But it’s not white people’s forgiveness that Northam needs.

Aside from the morality of the situation, it’s a political death sentence to the Virginia Democratic Party, in a state in which 20 percent of the population is black. White voters voted for the Republican candidate for governor 57-42. It was black voters—choosing Northam 87-12—who elected him governor. Same story in the 2016 presidential election: White voters opted for Trump 59-35, yet black voters opted for Hillary Clinton 88-9.

Even if you’re so tone-deaf on race that you don’t realize how damaging the facts of this case are (and too many of you distressingly are), then at least be motivated by the simple need to actually win in Virginia, both this November and in next year’s presidential contest.

If Northam stays, it’s not just morally repugnant, but electorally idiotic. “

[DBoon]

27. We need to be on top of this stuff before it breaks

Was nobody in the Democratic leadership aware of this? If not, they should be.

We need to dig up every possible hostile fact about our elected officials and other leaders and develop a contingency plan for when inconvenient facts will be released

I'm sure a of of right wingers are snickering about how they "owned the libs" on this one and are pleased to see prominent Democrats fall over each other to denounce one of their recently elected governors.

[triron]

34. Yeah, we fell for it again.

[SFnomad]

36. It's amazing to see all these benefit of the doubt type people in the threads about Northam

I wonder where they were when it came to Covington Catholic High School? Cause I don't remember anyone giving them the benefit of the doubt a couple weeks ago around here when it came to their blackface portion of their scandal.

[nightwing1240]

38. THIS

Excellent point!

[bitterross]

39. I was not in any doubt about the CovCath assholes.

There was no doubt about their behavior. There was clear, current, video. They are little jerks.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

50. Per the Cov Catholic group

I guess my disgust is more with the adults in charge of those kids. Plus remember theirs is some 30+ years later.

[Iggo]

72. Do a site search "covington blackout".

Wonder no more.

[RandySF]

51. That's why I first urged caution.

But the page was later verified.

[Newland56]

62. Today's standards

While I don’t really know if he should resign or not I do know that there is an issue with holding behaviors from a different time to the standards of today.
America has progressed in many many ways with regard to racial equality but there seems to be no room to allow an individual to progress and evolve.

By the standards set in this discussion we should strike all positive reference to Abraham Lincoln’s presidency because when he was talking about racial equality and interacial children he called the “half breed bastards” and said the threat of interacial marriage degraded “the supremacy of the white race”

Once that quote came out he should have resigned immediately. Granted he didn’t paint his face black or anything when he was young but still it was insensitive and disqualified him from the presidency and no consideration should be given to the fact his actions put an end to slavery in America. He should have resigned long before that.

[Iggo]

71. By the standards of 1984 that was disgusting, had no place in decent society...

...and millions of Dems would be calling for his head. Just like today.

If you were anywhere near adulthood back then, it amazes me that you'd try to float that nonsense.

[Newland56]

73. I somewhat agree

I somewhat agree
But I think blackface today compared to blackface in 84 are looked at differently at their respective times.
And yes, I do think we have a problem with today’s lens on past behavior.

By that standard Gillibrand should resign from the senate.
She defended big tobacco who are responsible for millions upon millions of deaths and who’s empires were built on slave labor.

But then again, I guess it’s all in how we squint our eyes.

[Iggo]

74. My eyes are wide open.

[Newland56]

75. Great

It should be easy for you to see that people do not hold everyone to the same standard depending on if we like them or not.
I’m not disputing he did a vulgar and disgusting thing.
What I am saying is that it was a long time ago and by YOUR own insinuation “if I was even approaching adulthood” at that time you are stating age has an affect on perception or choice of action.

I really honestly don’t have an opinion on if he should resign or not.

I do think that picture he took 35 years ago when he was very young was stupid, offensive, and promoted the opposite message of the values the Democratic Party stands for both then and now.

What I am more concerned with is in the last 15-20 years has he advocated a policy or proposed legislation that opposes the ideals and values of the Democratic Party.