It is never "O.K" To Say It Is "O.K."

RICHMOND, Va-- (WVUU) The reaction after the discovery of a racist image on the medical school yearbook page of Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, has been almost as swift. As the world now knows, the photo, taken at a party in 1984, shows one person in blackface and another dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, both holding beers. Northam initially said he was in the photo, although he couldn’t say which figure he was. He later backtracked, claiming he wasn’t in it and vowing to finish his term.

Will the United States ever reckon with the history that blackface represents? To reckon with it would require accountability. So far, it would seem that it’s exactly the wrong kind of accounting on the balance sheets of great wealth and power,gained through slavery and its aftermath, that matters most.

Here’s the bottom line: It is a searing experience to feel the vulnerability and hurt that black people feel, and to realize that racism is a constant in their lives. Once white people really see it, they would not be able to abide it in any form; the mocking of people’s skin color, mannerisms or cultural differences. They’d become sick of it, at the stupidity of it, of the terrible cost and waste of humanity. And it would become very clear that anyone who thinks blackface is entertaining is not only tone deaf, but truly racist and should not be rewarded with a political position of any kind.

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https://soundcloud.com/nicole-floyd-7/black-face