The people who didn’t wear blackface in Virginia, please raise your hand – IOTW Report

The people who didn’t wear blackface in Virginia, please raise your hand

Tommy Norment, the senate majority leader, edited his yearbook in 1968. It has people in blackface.

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A top Virginia Republican has joined a growing list of Democrats under fire for past racially insensitive photos and costumes.

Virginia Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment was the managing editor ofย Virginia Military Institute’s 1968 yearbook, which includes photos of students wearing blackface and people holding Confederate flags. Racial slurs like the N-word were published in addition to Asian slurs used to identify a student from Thailand.

In a statement he released Thursday, Norment did not take responsibility for any of the racist content.

“As one of seven working on a 359-page yearbook, I cannot endorse or associate myself with every photo, entry, or word on each page,” Norment said. “However, I am not in any of the photos referenced on pages 82 or 122, nor did I take any of the photos in question.” Photos on pages 82 and 122 each depict a person in blackface.

Norment is the first Virginia Republican to be touched by an ever widening scandal about past displays of racism that has engulfed the state’s top Democrats.

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32 Comments on The people who didn’t wear blackface in Virginia, please raise your hand

  1. Blackface. Can somebody explain for me:

    1. What’s so bad about young people dressing up in blackface in circa 1968?

    2. Why did it take 50 YEARS for somebody to complain about it?

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  2. I’d like to see someone try to handle this without groveling or self-flagellation. Normant might just get away with something like this:

    “In 1968, VMI was full of assholes. I was an asshole. My classmates were assholes. The teaching assistants and assistant professors were assholes, as were most but not all of the professors. And to be sure, the administrators were assholes. We were full of ourselves, thought we were better than anybody else, and weren’t quiet about proclaiming it.

    “We were wrong. I cringe when I look back at just how bloated my ego was, at how insufferably arrogant I was. I had lots of company, but that’s not any excuse, even though when you have a high concentration of assholes working, studying, and partying together, that attitude reinforces itself all the time.

    “All I can say now is that I think I’ve pretty much got over it, learned a lot living in the real world after finishing my schooling, and after some hard work and reflection, I’ve turned into a pretty decent guy. I hope you agree.”

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  3. Shamed, truth be told it was in Maryland, 1983. Worked out I was the only Stevie Wonder there surrounded by 7 blackface white Mr. T’s. Looking back now, it was wrong. After which, felt even worst for the one black dude that showed up not wearing a costume and everyone asking “Who did you come as”?

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  4. I’ll admit, I did not grow up in or ever lived in a Southern state, but I’ve gone to my share of Halloween party’s over the many years and I have never ever seen anyone or know anyone that has ever gone in blackface. My standard go to costume was of a commando since I was in the military many moons ago. But I have dressed up as a hobo (clearly insensitive to those not as fortunate), a elderly man (ageism is just the worst) and one year as Sleeping Beauty (yeah, I was hot) unaware of my mis appropriation faux pas.

    But you would have to be an idiot (or the most intolerant person on the planet) not to recognize the shifting norms of acceptability over the years. In this vein I just can’t get worked up over anything deemed offensive now that happened 50 years ago.

    There is an old Jewish principle that commands folks to view or see others in the most favorable light. So when somebody says something or does something, for us to just assume nefarious ends or assume a bad light for their motives right out of the gate, this reflects our evil, not theirs.

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  5. I don’t give a flying fuck about this blackface bullshit. It is a diversion from Northam’s backing up of Coumo’s approval of killing babies. Make them comfortable, have a discussion, etc. Then kill them. I call that premeditated murder. But “blackface” is demeaning?
    Fuck y’all. What I find demeaning is the Notre Dame mascot. The ugly monkey looking leprehaun as a fighting Irishman? Michael Collins was a fighting Irishman, and you Holy Cross faggots couldn’t shine his shoes. You even covered up murals of Christopher Columbus, so as not to “offend anyone.” Get rid of that ugly fucking monkey you assholes.And put Columbus back.
    You are truly weaklings and a discredit to any Irish man or woman

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  6. Rich Taylor I think this is hilarious. Except for the klan + blackface photo of the governor. That’s just fucked up in a creepy way.
    But anyway, I would only push these stories out and hard, to make the dems live by their pearl-clutching. And I think something good came from this- The gov stays in the news and we can remind him of his preference for infanticide, the lt. gov for his [alleged] rape and the secretary of state who… WTF else did he do? LOL
    Blackface, Asian eyes, (in relation to costume parties) Eskimo clothing, Indian clothing (dot and feather) etc aren’t going away. BUT- as long as the Progressives want to play GOTCHA, we can play, too. Make them live by their own rules. Til they cry. ๐Ÿ˜€

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  7. My sister and brother in law (raging liberals) have a picture on their refrigerator from about 30yrs ago of them dressed in blackface for a Halloween party they attended. Next time I go there thats the first thing I’m going to look for. Got some splaining to do.

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  8. I went to a Halloween Party in Black Face. Along with chicken bones around my neck and a leopard skin sarong. Nobody cared. It was a great costume. But, it was 40+ years ago (and I was still hot LOL).

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  9. I know I’ve told this story here before, but when I was in elementary school (many looong years ago) my class put on an actual minstrel show. You could do such things back then and nobody got upset about it (see the link below for Bing Crosby’s song from Holiday Inn). Besides, because of segregation, there were no “colored folk” there to see it and be offended – they were in separate schools.

    Anyway, when the teacher told me I needed to put on blackface, I balked and said I didn’t want that nasty greasepaint on my body (I could be stubborn at times as a child). She said OK, then you have to be Mr. Interlocutor – the only white person in the show.

    And that, kiddies, is how I got to be in a real minstrel show without ever wearing blackface even once.

    ๐Ÿ˜‰

    http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/sammondn/clips/holiday-inn-abraham-scene/view

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  10. I recently watched an uncensored version of ‘In The Heat of The Night’ on TCM.

    A tremendous movie in 1967 that couldn’t be made now.

    Steiger and Poitier were superb.

    Society has changed… and not for the better

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  11. that was a great movie. And MJA, you correct. Rub their dam noses in it and whack them on the nose with a newspaper.

    followed up with a swift kick in the ass on their way out the door.

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  12. Notice that since this blackface bullshit showed up there’s been little or no mention about the New York abortion law change or the fact that Virginia’s own murder law almost past. I suspect the the hard left of the Dem Party as well as the Soros types released this mess to take attention away from what they were doing to infants not realizing that their buddy the Lt Gov would get caught up as well as the AG and that they might accidently turn Virginia over to a Republican.

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  13. If black face is so damn terrible, then where is the outrage for the total face blackout that the Muzzie women wear – burka, hijab, etc. ??

    That is total blackface to the point of criminality, IMO.

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