How many of us have never looked at our own Yearbook?

[Tom Rinaldo]

OK, let's just say for the moment that a few folks, for whatever reason, never did. How many of us don't have at least a friend or two who would let us know that they had seen our page in that yearbook, if there was a photo of a swastika associated with our name? Or in this case a hooded Klan man standing with a clownish black faced white guy?

I mean, mistakes like that happen all the time, right? No big deal, nothing to be embarrassed about and no need to disavow it, either then or in the decades that followed...

Northam may be a totally different man now than he was as a Med school graduate (and yes, at 24 he was a man, not a boy.) Frankly, I don't know definitively if he is or not. I assume he has evolved since those days, most people do evolve, but I'm not in a position to know to what extent. His politics have evolved from Republican to Democratic, that is a matter of record. And as a Democrat he has taken some progressive stands, that too is on record. But his response to having that yearbook photo exposed is now also on the record. And it too is a fail.

I don't think the man deserves to be destroyed over something that happened 35 years ago which was never adequately dealt with; not then, not in the years that followed, and not this weekend either. But having to step aside from the Governorship does NOT equal being destroyed. America usually embrace those who truly repent. We may no longer trust them to occupy the same positions of power that they once held, but we can grow new and in some cases even greater respect for them. I listen closely to John Dean now, and learn from what he has to teach.

Today, more than ever, we need moral leadership on matters of racial justice from those who occupy our highest offices, particularly inside states where racial justice was once so blatantly trampled on. If there is a case to make to rally around Governor Northam now, that case must originate with Black Virginians first. Were that the case, I would be receptive to hearing it. Lacking that, and that is in fact lacking, Northam must step down. And progressive activists, especially white progressive activists, must not reflexively rally to his side out of partisan loyalties.

[TheBlackAdder]

1. I wonder. I'd like to see his original copy to see if anyone signed his page.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. If he still has it I strongly doubt it will ever see the public light of day

One didn't have to be a dedicated civil rights activist back then to be outraged by having your name associated with a photo like that. I've heard nothing to indicate he was bothered about it contemporaneously.

[Iggo]

37. He says he never bought it. Never saw it.

[X_Digger]

2. I never purchased a yearbook from high school or college.

I grep up dirt poor- I didn't have many friends in either place, mostly due to the same reason I didn't purchase a yearbook.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. The original poster addressed that in his first paragraph.

"OK, let's just say for the moment that a few folks, for whatever reason, never did. How many of us don't have at least a friend or two who would let us know that they had seen our page in that yearbook, if there was a photo of a swastika associated with our name? Or in this case a hooded Klan man standing with a clownish black faced white guy?"

[X_Digger]

22. I had no real friends, either.

Maybe someone who I would often sit beside or nod at in passing.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. Then it is likely your enemies would have let you know.

[X_Digger]

24. Didn't really have any of those, either. n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. Were you a cipher?

[X_Digger]

29. No, I just didn't fit in.

No skin off my nose, but I finished and never looked back.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. Well, you're welcome here.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. I don't think those circumstances applied to Northam

His med school was not exactly noted for the poverty of its students and grads.

[DonViejo]

7. If you only want people that can afford to buy yearbooks to reply to your question...

...you should state that in your OP.

[Tom Rinaldo]

10. No, it's fine of course for anyone to reply

And I acknowledged that some people may never have seen their "own" yearbook. But it is still valid to point out that it defies reason to think that Northam would not have known people who could afford to buy that graduates school yearbook, even if he did not. And that someone would have pointed out that photo to him had it been out of character for it to illustrate his page in that yearbook.

[jcgoldie]

19. Like you

I've never purchased a yearbook in my life. I think my mother bought some for me up to like the 5th grade but once it was my responsibility I always had something better to do with 30 or 40 bucks. (Well on second thought sometimes it was something worse...) Still I fail to see how whether he saw it or not exonerates him even a little bit for responsibility for that racist photograph.

[DonViejo]

6. I never purchased a college yearbook. Our youngest son graduated from College...

...a couple of years ago, didn't buy a yearbook either. Two other sons didn't purchase High School yearbooks.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. Again, if someone inserted a photo of a swastika next to your son's photo

do you think that never would have come to your, or your son's attention? To call that implausible, IMO, would be a wild understatement.

[NotAPuppet]

27. My school would not have published

a swastika or blackface picture in my yearbook.

I don’t even remember what I ate for dinner yesterday, and I certainly don’t remember any of my yearbooks.

[tonedevil]

26. If you or your sons...

are planing to run for public office you might want to take a note from the should be ex-Governor and get a look at what might be in any of those as yet to be examined yearbooks.

[stonecutter357]

9. Cool Story, Bro , !

[Empowerer]

11. "My bad. Sorry. Promise to do better. Now, back to business. How about those Pats?"

isn't repentence.

You're right, Tom. Resigning from the governorship isn't having one's life "destroyed" even a little bit.

If he really wants to, as he said, to do the difficult work to build back trust, the very least he can do is step down from the job he gained under false pretenses.

[greymattermom]

13. I think that yearbook pages are like ads.

The student buys a page to help support the publication of the yearbook. The student supplies all of the pictures. So, I think he gave them this picture because he thought it was a joke.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. For the Record. My OP said "looked at" one's Yearbook, not "purchased it"

There are many reasons not to buy one, but many chances to see one even if you don't. But more to the point, I am confident that word would have gotten back to me if there was something over the top racist printed in conjunction with my entry for any yearbook that I was in. People I knew would have wanted me to know that.

[Itchinjim]

15. Me. The day I graduated i swore to myself that I would never set foot in my HS again

Four of the most miserable years of my life were spent in a Catholic HS. With very few exceptions the majority of my classmates, male and female, were a bunch of Kavanaughs in the making. Forty years later I don't even know where my yearbook is. I've never looked back and never regretted it.

[Tom Rinaldo]

16. I'm not very nostalgic over High School either

though it was no where near as bad for me as what you describe. Not looking back is one thing, not glancing at the yearbook at the time is another. Northam was a graduate student here though, and nothing indicates that he was isolated from and/or traumatized by his classmates.

[RussBLib]

17. I never bought mine from high school

And I never have seen it either. And we didn't even do one in college.

I had a few friends in high school who promptly disappeared after we graduated. If I were in the public eye, as in politics, and if something weird were in there, it probably would be exposed. Since I didn't go into any public service in my career, weird pix probably would not be brought to my attention.

But then Northern says he put on blackface for a Michael Jackson imitation. Guy is an idiot.

[Johnny2X2X]

18. I don't know anyone who has a college yearbook

High school year book? Sure. College? Until this incident, I was unaware that colleges have yearbooks. I went to a large State University, what would be the point of a yearbook, to pick out a hand full of pictures to represent the several thousand students in my class?

If my school produced one, I never heard about it or saw it.

[crazycatlady]

20. I haven't looked at mine since high school

In fact I KonMaried them a few years ago as I'm never going to any reunions.

I never bought one in college and know nobody who did. My dad has a vintage (1901) yearbook from his alma matter but not any when he was there.

But now I think that candidates need to look at old yearbooks as part of the self-research process. Go to the school's library if necessary.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. Question

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211770427

[Gothmog]

28. I was in law school shortly before this event-we had no year book

My son and middle child went to different law schools and they had no year book

[treestar]

30. Our yearbooks just had lines of photos of the students

No pages for one person like Northam's did.

The general photos on other pages.

Law School did not have a yearbook.

I don't know if it is common to have Medical School yearbooks.

[Freethinker65]

32. I am not pictured in my senior yearbook. Refused to pay the sitting fee.

Bought the book though. Lost all four years in a basement flood when I was in my 20's. Happy to not feel the need to lug the useless books around as I moved. High school sucked.

Did not attend any of my college graduations. Did not really see the point. Do colleges even have yearbooks?

[TCJ70]

33. Me. Never was interested in getting one or looking at one.

Having gone to two elementaries, two middles, and two high schools I didn’t have strong attachments to anyone enough to really be into it.

By college no one really cared about it either.

[Awsi Dooger]

34. Everyone not only purchased the yearbook but knew the day it would be available

Granted, I went to a major high school with 3000 students, and then to USC. Both yearbooks were a huge deal. I remember at USC all the campus benches would be occupied on the afternoon the yearbook arrived, with friends checking over each other's shoulder while flipping pages to see how they had been depicted. Laughter all over the place. It was unmistakable every year. I purchased in advance and everyone I knew did the same.

I'm not sure how high profile a medical school yearbook would be in comparison. But I suspect the OP is correct and there is almost zero chance a "mistake" of this magnitude would have gone undetected and unreported.

The aspect of submitting your own photos adds to that certainty, given Northam's admission that he did submit photos. In the schools I attended, we had no idea what would show up in the yearbook, other than the annual picture in high school and graduation picture in college. Otherwise it was pot luck. I helped work on some pages in high school, as member of the student newspaper staff. We were asked to help out the yearbook crew when they were short on manpower. So I knew about those pages in advance but not anything else.

Keep in mind nothing was digital in those days. If you submitted photos they were physical copies and you wanted them back. It might be your only copy of a prized photo. I can just imagine Ralph Northam agreeing to submit photos, having them returned to him, and then never bothering to check the finished product.

[tulipsandroses]

35. I find it hard to believe that no one in his circle knew of that picture

From my experience, we in the healthcare community tend to have tight knit circles, we belong to various Associations, Alumni groups etc. I am still in touch with many RNs I went to nursing school with. I am now an NP, same goes - still in touch with people I went to grad school with. Over the years, I have found the same with many docs I have worked with. It is being reported that it was a fellow classmate upset about Northam's stance on abortion, that leaked the photo.

I am not buying for one second that this classmate was the only one that looked at this pic over the years. In that 1984 yearbook, there are many racist photos. It seems that this was the culture of this school. He had ample time over the years to address this matter.

The way he has chosen to deal with this is more telling than the picture itself. He had an opportunity to use his "evolvement" to help bridge the divide.

From an article on Slate.com

That’s just not credible. What changed between Friday night and Saturday morning wasn’t Northam sitting up late with a magnifying glass. It was two other things. First, based on the governor’s initial confessions, a wave of Democrats, including the Virginia Democratic Party and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, announced that he should resign. Second, Northam contacted his former medical school classmates. At the press conference, he said they told him they had “never seen me in any outfit like that.” He also said he had asked a former classmate, “Is there a possibility, you think, that someone could have put a photo on the wrong page?” Northam said that this classmate told him photos had been misplaced “on numerous pages in this very yearbook. … Photos laid out on a table. One could mistakenly get put on the wrong page. This happened numerous times in this yearbook. And I suspect that’s what happened in this case.”

[link:https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/ralph-northam-is-lying.html|

How did the classmate know that pics were placed on the wrong page? Sounds like they had seen this year book before. I'm calling bullshit on the future former Gov's lies.

[Ms. Toad]

36. I did buy my my college yearbooks -

partly because I was a straff photographer for the first couple of years of college. I looked at mine largely for the same reason - not to see pictures OF me, but to see which of my photos got in. Less than half of my classmates bought a copy of the yearbook. But I don't recall any conversations about pictures in the yearbook until our reunions - probably our 25th. Had I not gone to the reunions (perhaps about 20% did), I would not have had anyone pointing me out in any image.

[2naSalit]

38. Never looked at nor bought any of them...

And I hope I'm not in them.

[delisen]

39. I believe many people have not looked at or bought year books.

I did not prioritize owning a college yearbook, and frankly no interest in purchasing or keeping one.

That rah rah sis boom bah collegiate experience featured in movies with the sororities and fraternities, has never existed for a lot of us. My professional school did not have a yearbook. When one is working, attending graduate school, and raising a family often a yearbook is not high on the priority list.

In terms of John Dean, if he were able to and did run for office I would definitely have considered voting for him. He engaged in criminal activity, he served a sentence. I believe in restoration of voting rights.

I don't think running for office is a privilege. One does not have the right to force anyone to vote for onesself anyone who otherwise meets the qualifications.

We don't seem to have any national moral leaders now-maybe I am wrong and perhaps you can suggest some current ones.
(One problem with politicians as moral leaders is that many do have self interest and most have party allegiance to consider).

Martin Luther King, Jr certainly held a position of moral leadership during the time he was alive. Possibly you can find something instructive about the situation in his writings and share that with us.

Citizens who vote for a party, even if they vote exclusively for a party, are not members of that party. The members are the office holder and other officials.While members may make suggestions, they don't get to tell the rest of us citizens what we must or should do in these situations.

When I hear too many musts and shoulds, or aspersions upon the character or intelligence of those who do not immediately march to the instructions of the "official," I think about the new authoritarianism sweeping the world.