Paging Doctor Northam

Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam and his
controversial 1983 medical school yearbook photo 

"Virginia has told us to end the divisiveness, that we will not condone hatred and bigotry. It's going to take a doctor to heal our differences. And I'm here to tell you, the doctor is in!"

Hard to believe it's been just over a year and two months since the embattled Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam said those words to cheering supporters after soundly defeating Republican candidate Ed Gillespie back on November 7, 2017.

What a difference 15 months makes.

Over the past couple of days I've spent quite a bit of time buried in the hundreds of reader comments on Saturday's New York Times article on Northam's stubborn determination not to cede to pressure to resign from Democratic leaders on the state and national level - including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former vice-president Joe Biden and Senators Kamala Harris and Corey Booker to name just a few.

There's also growing grassroots pressure for him to step down from angry voters as well, as evidenced by the Virginia citizens gathered in front of the governor's mansion on Saturday wielding hand-written signs and calling on him to resign - as well as thousands of people expressing similar views on social media as well.

While more than a few comments on the NY Times article from conservative readers expressed the easily-provable falsehood that Democrats have dismissed Northam's racism as a "youthful indiscretion", a quick glance at media headlines makes it clear the consensus is that he has to go.

Is Northam a racist?

Personally speaking I don't think it's fair, or even possible to make a determination like that simply based on a black and white photo posted on his medical school yearbook page back in 1983.

Just because Northam grew up on a farm on the rural eastern shore of Virginia and speaks with a distinctive southern drawl (or donned blackface at a party) doesn't make him a racist.

A photo of the 1978 Oancock HS football team shows
a fairly integrated student body

According to a Washington Post article by Jenna Portnoy, Northam graduated from the predominantly African-American Oancock (Virginia) High School in 1977 where he was voted "most likely to succeed" and was one of the few white kids on the boys basketball team.

Take a look at this photo of the 1978 Oancock HS football team (pictured left).

It was taken the year after Ralph Northam graduated, but as a simple snapshot of the school environment in which he was raised, it does reveal a fairly integrated group of students.

If Northam was a racist, why would he play on a basketball team mostly comprised of African-Americans? And why would a group of his black peers vote him most likely to succeed?

Portnoy's WaPo profile of Northam also paints a portrait of a man who's held some pretty progressive political views during his time in Virginia politics - including support for a woman's right to make decisions in cases of abortion and support for a bill that would legalize marijuana to treat some childhood illnesses and conditions related to seizures (he's a pediatric neurologist).

Of course it should be noted that the much more progressive Democratic primary challenger for the governor's chair, Tom Periello did force Northam to shift his policy positions to the left out of political necessity.

But the fact that the now-infamous photo making media headlines was placed on Northam's yearbook page when he was an adult and a college graduate, and the fact that he made the decision to don a costume with clearly racist overtones, does raise questions in an era in which Trump's presidency has been defined by bigotry and contempt for, and hostility towards non-white people.

In his press conference on Saturday Northam admitted that in 1984 "I did participate in a dance contest in San Antonio, in which I darkened my face as part of a Michael Jackson costume."

But in the same press conference Northam also raised eyebrows by claiming that neither the person wearing black face, or the person wearing the Ku Klux Klan hood were him - just a day after apologizing for the photo.

2017 Northam campaign flier with the photo
of Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax removed 

Now if it is true that Northam is not in the photo, what's the photo doing on his yearbook page?

Interestingly, the yearbook photo isn't the first time Northam has received criticism for imagery with racial overtones.

During the 2017 race for Virginia governor, the Northam campaign caught flack for removing a photo of his then-39-year-old African-American lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax from a version of a campaign flier (pictured left).

Basically I agree with the crux of the public statement released by Fairfax, who recently made headlines after exiting the legislative chamber while Republican members of the State Senate honored former Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

Following a Saturday press conference in which Northam asked for forgiveness, Fairfax, who would become governor of Virginia if Northam resigns, said on Saturday (in part):

"Like so many Virginians, I am shocked and saddened by the images in the Governor's yearbook that came to light yesterday. They are an example of a painful scourge that continues to haunt us today and holds us back from the progress we need to make.

I cannot condone the actions from (Northam's) past, that, at the very least, suggest a comfort with Virginia's darker history of white supremacism, racial stereotyping and intimidation."

Outside of the optics of the photo itself, one of the most troubling (and ironic) aspects of this controversy is that Northam was elected governor in part on his ability to portray his Republican opponent Ed Gillespie as racially intolerant.

It was a label that stuck as Gillespie willingly embraced inflated racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and phony MS-13 fear-mongering during the Republican primary in an effort to woo Trump supporters.

Ralph Northam (left) and Republican candidate
Ed Gillespie during a 2017 gubernatorial debate

The 2017 Virginia race for governor wasn't just a gauge of voter's feelings about the first year of the Trump administration - it was a snapshot of a much broader cultural divide in America and a contest with clear national political implications for the 2018 midterm elections.

Election Day in Virginia, November 7, 2017 took place just over two months after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in which white supremacist James Alex Fields, Jr. intentionally rammed his car into a crowd of protestors, killing 32-year-old Heather Hoyer and injuring 19 others.

It also came against the backdrop of the closely-watched special "off year" election for the Alabama Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions when he was nominated for Attorney General.

A race between the Republican candidate Roy Moore, the controversial former Alabama chief justice known for his right-wing political and social views, and the Democratic candidate, former U.S. attorney Doug Jones.

Jones' eventual upset victory in December, 2017 flipped a reliably-Republican Senate seat Democrat for the first time in decades, a victory spurred in part by some Alabama Republicans and independents expressing their disapproval of Trump by voting Democratic.

It was a costly and contentious political race that drew national attention and was widely viewed as a repudiation of Trump, who'd publicly defended Roy Moore against multiple allegations of improper sexual relations with girls as young as 14-years old.

The United States was already politically divided over Trump's embrace of anti-immigrant fear mongering, racism and authoritarian world leaders.

Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (left) and
then-lieutenant gov. Ralph Northam in happier times

So the 2017 Virginia governor's race became something of a lightening rod.

Not just for hot-button wedge issues like the removal monuments of Confederate leaders, but also for support for the Affordable Care Act as well as sanctuary cities and protections for undocumented immigrants.

Northam was relatively unknown on the national political scene when he won a 2013 election to serve as lieutenant governor under the popular Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe.


McAuliffe, the charismatic former head of the Democratic National Committee, had famously served as co-chair of Bill Clinton's successful 1996 presidential campaign, and was the chair of Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 bid for president.

Because the state of Virginia limits governors to one four-year term in office at a time, Northam announced his intention to run for governor in 2015 with the blessing of then-governor McAuliffe and the national Democratic Party.

Much like former Republican vice president George Herbert Walker Bush's rise to the presidency in 1988 following Ronald Regan's 2nd term, it's fair to say that Northam's political rise in 2017 was on the coattails of McAuliffe - a well-connected, veteran Democratic political operator - as much as it was on voter's displeasure with Trump's first year in office.

But that progressive platform on which he successfully ran for governor in 2017, and the perception of him as the centrist-progressive Democratic candidate standing in opposition to the racial division of the Trump agenda, has been overshadowed by a 36-year-old photograph.   

And in the wake of the widespread condemnation of Republican Iowa Congressman Steve King's recent (latest) controversial comments defending white supremacy, and his continued use of his official House website to promote a blog known as a platform for known white supremacists like Richard Spencer, the pressure on Ralph Northam to resign from Democratic leaders will only intensify in the days ahead with the 2020 presidential race on the horizon.

Only Ralph Northam can answer the question of why he would don blackface or a KKK robe at a party, but that image could very well spell the end of a promising political career - and cast a dark shadow on his political legacy for years to come.