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Northam: "I'm not going anywhere". Calls slaves, "indentured servants"

What he meant should matter. Northam grew up in the time of desegregation and while other White familes fled to all White schools his family kept him in. He was in a basketball team that was mostly Black. He has a long history of supporting integration. His father was known as someone who would not tolerate racial epithets. He's one of the good guys.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term=.38776f8a7a25

Are we to believe he's a racist who attends a mostly Black church? I hope you're able to read the Washington Post story. I only just found it.

What's happening is awful. He's the opposite of a racist.

No, we are to believe he is ignorant as a tree stump at age 59 and in 2019. Either that or he is massively unscrupulous. I just don't care which one as I have stated before. This guy steps on more land minds in a week than you would think possible. Is he out there burying them and then stepping in them?

That said, the citizens of Virginia have been put in a really tough spot and are being offered a whole host of unacceptable alternatives FOR THEM, one of which is massively unacceptable. So I really have no qualms with what they are doing in Virginia. Its their decision to make. However Northam to me represents one of the larger problems we have in this country. Northam cannot even figure out that he is no longer functioning in the role of a physician and is exclusively now a politician and worse can't figure it out at age 59! How far down the rathole have we gone to have changed the standards such that Northam can be this ignorant, oblivious and juvenile at age 59 and Gov. of Virginia and Donald BamBam Trump can be President at age 72 and both be defended for it.

To be specific, I am not comparing Northam to Trump. But the same issues have taken us to a very similar dynamic that is driving our quality of our leadership and our politics.

I don't really care where Northam's parents kept him or moved him to or educated him. He obviously not only learned the standard Southern tropes about Slavery but didn't question them in a state and in a time when he should have and is still oblivious enough to repeat them in 2019! The Northam argument is the same as Turmpets make for Trump: "I know, he is an idiot, but I like his policies". Yea sure you do until they blow up in your face. Will you blame yourself then? I doubt it.

We have a citizenry that does not know the first thing about this country, its history, its form of government, would not know leadership if it hit them over the head with a 2x4 and frankly, on balance does not much care as long as they have their remote, an easy chair and a bowl of popcorn. We have political leadership that on the whole has gone from circling the drain to wallowing in the sewage. How does eliminating Civics lessons K-12 look now?
 
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No, we are to believe he is ignorant as a tree stump at age 59 and in 2019. Either that or he is massively unscrupulous. I just don't care which one as I have stated before. This guy steps on more land minds in a week than you would think possible. Is he out there burying them and then stepping in them?

That said, the citizens of Virginia have been put in a really tough spot and are being offered a whole host of unacceptable alternatives FOR THEM, one of which is massively unacceptable. So I really have no qualms with what they are doing in Virginia. Its their decision to make. However Northam to me represents one of the larger problems we have in this country. Northam cannot even figure out that he is no longer functioning in the role of a physician and is exclusively now a politician and worse can't figure it out at age 59! How far down the rathole have we gone to have changed the standards such that Northam can be this ignorant, oblivious and juvenile at age 59 and Gov. of Virginia and Donald BamBam Trump can be President at age 72 and both be defended for it.

To be specific, I am not comparing Northam to Trump. But the same issues have taken us to a very similar dynamic that is driving our quality of our leadership and our politics.

I don't really care where Northam's parents kept him or moved him to or educated him. He obviously not only learned the standard Southern tropes about Slavery but didn't question them in a state and in a time when he should have and is still oblivious enough to repeat them in 2019! The Northam argument is the same as Turmpets make for Trump: "I know, he is an idiot, but I like his policies". Yea sure you do until they blow up in your face. Will you blame yourself then? I doubt it.

We have a citizenry that does not know the first thing about this country, its history, its form of government, would not know leadership if it hit them over the head with a 2x4 and frankly, on balance does not much care as long as they have their remote, an easy chair and a bowl of popcorn. We have political leadership that on the whole has gone from circling the drain to wallowing in the sewage. How does eliminating Civics lessons K-12 look now?

But he's not a racist. Does that not matter anymore?

It's impossible to compare Northam to Trump. Can you imagine if Trump was a long time member of a mostly African American church? Can you imagine if his church members supported him and agreed he wasn't racist?

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s predominantly black church wants him to have ‘another chance’ after blackface controversy
 
How do you know this?

I don't but the mostly Black church he belongs to seems to think he's not racist. I'm inclined to believe them over some 35-year-old picture.

Have you ever been to a Black church? It would be sheer torture for a racist.
 

I just did. You ignored it. All conservatives ignore facts that don't line up with their preconceived conclusions. You're in good company, my friend.
 
But he's not a racist. Does that not matter anymore?

It's impossible to compare Northam to Trump. Can you imagine if Trump was a long time member of a mostly African American church? Can you imagine if his church members supported him and agreed he wasn't racist?

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s predominantly black church wants him to have ‘another chance’ after blackface controversy

I never called Northam a racist.

There are two reasons modern Germany is where it is today (Imagine where they would be if we had not split them down the middle for 50 odd years:
1) The Marshall Plan
2) The preponderance of Germans did not kid themselves about their role in bringing Hitler to power, Nazism and the massive lies they were able to convince themselves were truths from 1933 through 1945. If anything they took more responsibility than they should have because a case could be made that the winners of WW1 literally set up its continuation over a much broader landscaped called WW2. You barely ever hear a peep out of Germans about that even today though they could have adopted what would have been a European Trope very easily: "The Triple Entente in its zeal to punish the Triple Alliance at the end of WW1 literally compelled us into WW2". That argument would have had some "technical merit" but would have in fact been a FALSE NARRATIVE.

Either a country deals with its issues realistically and in an adult manner or it continues to hide them under a blanket of absurdity and nonsense and tropes. We continue to confront our racial imbalance issues, racial unrest and division in this country in part because we refuse to deal with them. We deny them.

We have one part of the citizenry that has bought into the absurd notion that the country the Founders created was intended to stay EXACTLY how it was in the 1780's. That one might be the most laughable notion EVER about America and its founding as it completely ignores the aspirational goals of the Founders. These folks I refer to here, don't even know what the heck the Founders were doing but claim them as their own regardless.

We have another part of the citizenry that does not understand that the responsibility for this Constitutional Republic falls with us....nobody else. It does not fall with some one guy we are going to install in the WH or any other group of politicians for that matter. It falls with us and if we won't even vote to protect it, we may not actually deserve it. The only way we have to lift ourselves out of our current malaise is to vote and vote and keep voting. I have good kids thankfully. Two of them reached voting age this year and I proudly took them to vote. Helped them understand how to digest information and how to adopt a thought process for making voting decisions, not that Education, public or private takes any responsibility for that any longer. Then I left it to them to pick their preferred candidates for office.

Beyond being good kids, there is only one thing they know they have to do to be in my good graces. Now that they have started to vote, they have to keep voting. They can follow the religion of their choice, choose the life mates they prefer, pursue the careers they wish, buy the cars they want, WHATEVER. I am too old a dog to think I can drive those decisions of theirs. THEY HAVE TO VOTE or deal with me at my most caustic and most terse.
 
Either a country deals with its issues realistically and in an adult manner or it continues to hide them under a blanket of absurdity and nonsense and tropes. We continue to confront our racial imbalance issues, racial unrest and division in this country in part because we refuse to deal with them. We deny them.

Maybe I'm missing something. Does Northam have a history of promoting a false historical narrative about slavery? Has Northam promoted a denialist narrative? I don't think one phrase means he's intentionally promoting a false narrative.

I'm not from Virginia so I am open to being wrong about Northam.
 
I don't but the mostly Black church he belongs to seems to think he's not racist. I'm inclined to believe them over some 35-year-old picture.

Have you ever been to a Black church? It would be sheer torture for a racist.

I've never been to a black church, but I have no doubt you're right. I know some people can grow and learn from past mistakes, but in the end, no one knows what lurks in hearts of men. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to portray themselves as something they're not, e.g. Numnuts.

But I don't believe it matters what he believes now or then. Regardless of what black or white Virginians think, if the national Democratic party believes the Repubs will use it to hurt the party nation wide, they have every right to call for his ousting or refusing to work with him until he goes.

The idea that this will 'ruin' his life is BS, as the polls show many Virginians are perfectly ok with him. He'll have no problem finding a Virginian who'll love to hire someone with such a high profile to work in some other capacity.

Serving the public is a privilege, not a right...
 
I've never been to a black church, but I have no doubt you're right. I know some people can grow and learn from past mistakes, but in the end, no one knows what lurks in hearts of men. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to portray themselves as something they're not, e.g. Numnuts.

But I don't believe it matters what he believes now or then. Regardless of what black or white Virginians think, if the national Democratic party believes the Repubs will use it to hurt the party nation wide, they have every right to call for his ousting or refusing to work with him until he goes.

The idea that this will 'ruin' his life is BS, as the polls show many Virginians are perfectly ok with him. He'll have no problem finding a Virginian who'll love to hire someone with such a high profile to work in some other capacity.

Serving the public is a privilege, not a right...

Most Black people in Virginia don't think he should resign.

It seems like the Democratic party leaders are just afraid of appearances which is kind of a superficial position.

Yes, serving in public office is a privilege but it's a privilege given by voters not party leaders more worried about appearances rather than truth.

And it's not really good for the party because every Democrat has to have led a perfect unblemished life while on the other side monsters like Trump are in the Oval Office. We're just eating our own.
 
Maybe I'm missing something. Does Northam have a history of promoting a false historical narrative about slavery? Has Northam promoted a denialist narrative? I don't think one phrase means he's intentionally promoting a false narrative.

I'm not from Virginia so I am open to being wrong about Northam.

I cannot say for sure what he has a history of with regard to the issue. I can say that with three opportunities in the span of a week to show his timber he consecutively:
- apologized for being in the photo without saying which of the two characters he was
- then claimed that he did not think it was him in the photo while being oblivious enough to use a black face incident in his past as a proof for his belief that he was not in the photo...pretty oblivious to the racial edge of invective he was dancing upon (pardon the moonwalk pun)
- then went on to repeat what is simply a Virginia/Southern trope that uses the slippery dodge of Indentured Servitude imparting far too much relevance to what is an incomplete story as the trope goes and thus turns it into a left handed lie.

In the middle of all that, Northam completely blew his opportunity to speak intelligently as a politician regarding the abortion legislation he apparently supports by talking to his audience like they were patients and he a doctor as opposed to a politician.

I have rarely seen such a performance over such a short time span.

No wonder we are in our current predicament in this country.
 
I cannot say for sure what he has a history of with regard to the issue. I can say that with three opportunities in the span of a week to show his timber he consecutively:
- apologized for being in the photo without saying which of the two characters he was
- then claimed that he did not think it was him in the photo while being oblivious enough to use a black face incident in his past as a proof for his belief that he was not in the photo...pretty oblivious to the racial edge of invective he was dancing upon (pardon the moonwalk pun)
- then went on to repeat what is simply a Virginia/Southern trope that uses the slippery dodge of Indentured Servitude imparting far too much relevance to what is an incomplete story as the trope goes and thus turns it into a left handed lie.

In the middle of all that, Northam completely blew his opportunity to speak intelligently as a politician regarding the abortion legislation he apparently supports by talking to his audience like they were patients and he a doctor as opposed to a politician.

I have rarely seen such a performance over such a short time span.

No wonder we are in our current predicament in this country.


So far, you've said:

1. He's not racists

2. You don't know if he has a history of promoting slavery denying narrative.

I agree he completely bungled the response but does that mean he should resign? What politician has not completely bungled a crisis? And who takes over, Fairfax?

Let's not forget who he defeated and lets not eat our own.

 
Most Black people in Virginia don't think he should resign.

It seems like the Democratic party leaders are just afraid of appearances which is kind of a superficial position...

Dude, you can't be that naïve. Appearances play a huge part of politics and most everything else in life. Numnuts has made a career by projecting an appearance that has nothing to do with reality. The bottom line is that a huge majority of Americans are superficial. If making our candidates more appealing to them in order to take our country back, so be it. Welcome to politics in America :)

...Yes, serving in public office is a privilege but it's a privilege given by voters not party leaders more worried about appearances rather than truth...

You're partially right. Northam can choose to run as an independent and the voters can give him the privilege to serve. But the Dems are a private organization and can deny someone from running on their ticket if they believe the candidate will embarrass or harm their party.

...And it's not really good for the party because every Democrat has to have led a perfect unblemished life while on the other side monsters like Trump are in the Oval Office. We're just eating our own.

No one is saying that every Dem has to have led an unblemished life. But there're far too many Dems who have led an unblemished life to choose from, to represent our party. I don't care how immoral a monster The Cult will choose to represent them. We're not eating our own, we're protecting our own party...
 
So far, you've said:

1. He's not racists

2. You don't know if he has a history of promoting slavery denying narrative.

I agree he completely bungled the response but does that mean he should resign? What politician has not completely bungled a crisis? And who takes over, Fairfax?

Let's not forget who he defeated and lets not eat our own.



He does not move the ball forward and I am sick of politicians that move the ball backward. Faulkner was right from his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun set in Mississippi and steeped in Southern tradition. "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Truer words regarding the South of that era were never put to paper and its just galling to hear Southern Tropes about Slavery from a sitting Virginia Governor in 2019 in the midst of the another one of our country's racial angst periods.

Its a debate forum and that is the only real dog I have in this.

As for Virginia and the Virginia Democratic Party, it got itself into this mess. It can get itself out. You are kidding yourself if you think its not going to be bloody.
 
Dude, you can't be that naïve. Appearances play a huge part of politics and most everything else in life. Numnuts has made a career by projecting an appearance that has nothing to do with reality.

What's the reality? One photo doesn't define reality. It's like reading a single page from a novel and defining the entire novel.

I don't think I'm being naive. I think it's deeply paranoid to claim that everything he did in his life that is evidence that he's not racist is a ploy to cover his secret racism.

I must disagree with your claim that "there are too many Dems who have led an unblemished life to choose from."

That's not true of Joe Biden

JOE BIDEN’S RECORD ON RACIAL INTEGRATION IS INDEFENSIBLE

It wasn't true of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

It's not true of Elizabeth Warren.

Also, it all plays into the conservative narrative that Dems accuse everyone of being a racist.

This is what the pastor of the Black church Northam belongs to had to say...

"He has now the opportunity to even be more effective in the sense that he knows what that hurt caused people," Jones said. "But sometimes, I’ve come to learn that we aren’t afforded opportunities to make right on what are our wrongs. Because we live in a society that discards you once you’re wrong."

Jones, who gave the invocation at Northam's inauguration in 2018 and reportedly attended Saturday's press conference, told The New York Times that he advised Northam on Saturday that he needed “to be in a place where you get loved on.”

At a church service on Sunday, the times said Jones called up Northam and his wife and church members prayed for them.

“We circle and pray for them,” Jones said in the service where he challenged members with the words of Jesus from John 8 – “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s predominantly black church wants him to have ‘another chance’ after blackface controversy

I guess we can agree to disagree.
 
What's the reality? One photo doesn't define reality. It's like reading a single page from a novel and defining the entire novel.

I don't think I'm being naive. I think it's deeply paranoid to claim that everything he did in his life that is evidence that he's not racist is a ploy to cover his secret racism.

I must disagree with your claim that "there are too many Dems who have led an unblemished life to choose from."

That's not true of Joe Biden

JOE BIDEN’S RECORD ON RACIAL INTEGRATION IS INDEFENSIBLE

It wasn't true of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

It's not true of Elizabeth Warren.

Also, it all plays into the conservative narrative that Dems accuse everyone of being a racist.

This is what the pastor of the Black church Northam belongs to had to say...



Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s predominantly black church wants him to have ‘another chance’ after blackface controversy

I guess we can agree to disagree.

I agree about our disagreements and these will be my last comments.

I never claimed, "that everything he did in his life that is evidence that he's not racist is a ploy to cover his secret racism". I said some people can change, but no one really knows what's in a man's, or more to the point, a politician's heart.

I believe that the vast majority of Dems who're now serving or will run for office have no past racial issues. Why support one that does? Look at how many Dems will be running for president in 20'. Why give the Repubs ammo to attack one with 'a past', when there're so many other, well qualified candidates to choose from?

Everyone's entitled to one, but the pastor's opinion doesn't hold any more water than anyone else's. There's a huge generational difference between the one who lived before the civil rights movement and the next two. The latter ones are much less tolerant of racism now and in the past. So which generation and how small a percentage of all black Virginians would be attending church?

One last thing about Coonman. Beyond how badly he blew his response as jnug points out, he should have done the right thing. He could have released the pic by himself long ago, saying something along the lines of, "I was wrong and I've learned my lesson". But he chose not to. We need leaders who're not only capable, but courageous...
 
We need leaders who're not only capable, but courageous...

I don't like Bil Maher but sometimes he's funny and sometimes he's right. Here is he is both...

 
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