Outrage Over Blackface Is Enough To Unseat A Governor, But Pretendians Are OK?

Yearbook photo from Skowhegan High School in the 1970's

It's anybody's guess what day this week the governor of Virginia will resign over his college nickname "Coonman" (which the Urban Dictionary defines as a person who does not like Black people) and his photo in blackface. 

The photo from Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook page is actually even worse than just blackface, because his companion in the pic is dressed in a Ku Klux Klan hooded robe. Northam has issued a series of denials and obfuscations typical of powerful men caught in wrongdoing and impulsive enough to talk to reporters before consulting an expensive PR firm for advice. (Even Covington teen Nick Sandmann knew better than that.)

So Northam will eventually resign from being the governor of Virginia. 

University of Virginia students under attack on campus in Charlottesville August, 2017

You may recall that Virginia is the state where Charlottesville permitted a white supremacist rally in 2017 that featured violent attacks on random black people, and death by hit and run of white racial justice worker Heather Heyer.

What exactly is the difference between appearing in blackface and appearing in "redface", feathers and "war paint" as pretendians?

Skowhegan High School yearbook photo from the 1970's

Ok, one difference might be that these pretendians are in high school 50 years ago and may not have known any better at the time.

However, their yearbook advisor(s) were adults being paid to oversee their education. Where is their responsibility here? Here are some yearbook covers from Skowhegan High School that play around with the pretendian motif.

This one is a little hard to see. It depicts a pretendian who appears to be praying while seated on a horse. Because when you're appropriating other people's culture and identity you can just make stuff up, and you don't really need to learn about how they actually got around for thousands of years before European invaders came to this area. (Hint: who invented the canoe?).

Multiple Skowhegan Indian Pride supporters have testified that they honor "Indians" by using them as a mascot or team name. Actual Penobscot, Passamoqoddy, Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people have said for decades now that they do not feel honored by these cartoonish depictions. Or by teenagers dressed in "war paint" using "war whoops" and displaying imitation feathers or pipes that are considered sacred and used in ceremony.

What is the difference between blackface and dressing up as pretend Indians? Not much as far as I can see.

When you don't know any better, you do it. As my sister Hope explained in her essay "I Do Not Have White Guilt," when you learn more and realize it is wrong, you stop doing it. And you apologize to those you've offended.

And then, you don't do it anymore.

EDITED 2/4/19 5:42am  It appears from my stats on Blogger that someone is sharing my blog via a porn website. If you came here from 

the content of this blog is probably going to be disappointing.