Virginia Governor Northam's Strange, Offensive Yearbook Picture

It's been a couple of days since Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's 1984 medical yearbook profile page showed a picture of somebody wearing "blackface" standing next to another in KKK attire, both holding drinks.  Underneath the regrettable photo was a supposed quote of his, attesting that since there are more old drunks in the world than old doctors, then bring me another beer.  I get it, other students with personal pages in that yearbook probably had gag pictures and quotes on them as well...all in fun, right? But, dude, you had to know that this would not be a good picture to promote and identify with, didn't you?  DIDN'T YOU?

Northam's initial reaction to the revelation was to put out a written apology acknowledging his poor judgement with wearing blackface...but since then has denied doing so, claiming that he wasn't even in the picture.  In the meantime, almost the entire Democratic Party, led of course by those grandstanders running for president, are calling for him to resign as governor, which he has been serving as for a little more than a year.  Before that Northam was Virginia's lieutenant governor for four years.  And yet all this time, with all the high-paid opposition research supposedly done on candidates in these very competitive political times, no one had come up with this amazingly offensive photo...and in one of the places you might think researchers would have gone to at first...what incompetence!  And about the racial aspect to this all? It's apparent to me that Northam...and most likely the white classmates he buddied around with...were a bit flippant, insensitive, and careless about race and tried to joke around about a topic that has been the source of great suffering, indignity, and persecution in the past.  But that's what happens when people surround themselves with the same little clique of friends, each feeding off the others' words until they begin to mistake the perspectives (and warped sense of humor) of their limited social circle as being those of society at large...I strongly suspect this is what happened in medical student Northam's case.  Oh well, if he hasn't resigned yet I think he probably will before too long...