Ralph Northam, blackface and medical apartheid: An American nightmare

Share

Explore Our Galleries

A man stands in front of the Djingareyber mosque on February 4, 2016 in Timbuktu, central Mali. 
Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu on February 4 celebrated the recovery of its historic mausoleums, destroyed during an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and rebuilt thanks to UN cultural agency UNESCO.
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY SEBASTIEN RIEUSSEC / AFP / SÉBASTIEN RIEUSSEC
African Peoples Before Captivity
Shackles from Slave Ship Henrietta Marie
Kidnapped: The Middle Passage
Image of the first black members of Congress
Reconstruction: A Brief Glimpse of Freedom
The Lynching of Laura Nelson_May_1911 200x200
One Hundred Years of Jim Crow
Civil Rights protest in Alabama
I Am Somebody! The Struggle for Justice
Black Lives Matter movement
NOW: Free At Last?
#15-Beitler photo best TF reduced size
Memorial to the Victims of Lynching
hands raised black background
The Freedom-Lovers’ Roll Call Wall
Frozen custard in Milwaukee's Bronzeville
Special Exhibits

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Ways to Support ABHM?

The casual, brutal racism in Northam’s medical school yearbook is not random. It reflects a long and ugly history.

By Chauncey Devega, Salon.com

Gov. Ralph Northam’s page in his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s predicament has been upstaged over the last few days by that state’s widening scandal, as Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax — who would replace Northam if the latter resigns — now faces multiple accusations of sexual assault. Nonetheless, Northam needs to go. His confusing back-and-forth story about whether or not he engaged in blackface race minstrelsy while in medical school is disqualifying in itself, whether or not Northam is one of the men in the now-infamous photo on his 1984 yearbook page.

A governor’s term is relatively short. Those are but a few years as compared to the centuries of troubled and horrible history that Northam’s 1984 yearbook photo channels and legitimates.

There are monsters in Ralph Northam’s yearbook. These are the other white men, those future doctors and healers, who wore blackface or Ku Klux Klan robes (which are intended to symbolize the ghosts of Confederate soldiers) as they laughed and joyfully postured. Racial terrorism and the suffering of black people seemed funny to them.

This is all another reminder that how to be black in America is to be stuck in a waking nightmare. It reflects a one-way abusive relationship, across the color line, that has existed for centuries.

There are is a whole vocabulary to describe this state of affairs.

Negrophobia, white supremacy, white racial paranoia, spectacular violence, colorblind racism, white privilege, white racial logic, the white racial frame, “adultification,” “stereotype threat,” symbolic racism, old-fashioned racism and reverse racism.

Black people also have an internal dialogue and script they use to navigate this nightmare world. “Hands up, don’t shoot.” “Never forget ‘The Talk.'” “Don’t walk too fast, don’t walk too slow.” “Smile lest you be perceived as an angry black man or an angry black woman.” “Be nice but not too nice lest you be perceived as ‘condescending’ or ‘disrespectful.'””Officer, I am unarmed. I am innocent. Please don’t hurt or kill me.” “Officer, I am complying with your commands. Please don’t shoot me while I take my ID from my wallet.”

Black people are often forced to wonder: If they are killed by police officers, or by a George Zimmerman-style vigilante, how will the news media distort their lives?…

Read full article here

Read more about United States’ Medical Apartheid  here and  here

More Breaking News here

View more ABHM galleries here

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.

Leave a Comment