When Virginia’s governor, democrat Ralph Northam, was interviewed by CBS, it was his first appearance after having been accused of racism. It was last Friday that a controversial photo from Northams student days came to light. The picture les two young men toward the camera, one with a painted black face, the other in Ku Klux Klan clothing. But instead, in order to achieve effective crisis management after a week of black headlines and avgångskrav managed the governor to bring the new criticism.
”It is now 400 years ago, only 14 miles from here, the first to contract the servants from Africa arrived,” said the governor to the program, CBS This Morning. ”It’s also called slavery,” pointed out the interviewer Gayle King: ”Yes,” replied the governor Northam.
https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1094687453389250560
The then-british colony of Virginia applied the contract agents during the early 1600s, mainly for european immigrants who paid for their trip across the Atlantic ocean and its living in The New World by over a length to be attached to resident landowners, before they themselves could choose to stay or leave. 1619 arrived as the first black africans to Virginia on the ship ”White Lion”, an event that Encyclopedia Virgina, delstatsbiblioteket the Library of Virginia’s own encyclopedia describes: ”They were sold in exchange for food and were brought to Jamestown (the capital of the colony) where they were sold again, likely into slavery”.
During the Monday, many reacted to the governor’s choice of words. For example, The Hill, an influential news site of american politics: ”WATCH: Gayle King fix the Northam for that he refers to slaves as ’contract servant’”.
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1094757172574076929
Andrea Mitchell, head of the utrikesbevakningen on NBC News, tweeting: ”Thank you to Gayle King who told the governor Northam to the people who came to Jamestown 400 years ago were not ”contract servants from Africa”. The kind of historically inaccurate skönskrivningar will not help in his sworn intent to bring the conversation about race forward”.
https://twitter.com/mitchellreports/status/1094747647154491393
the Governor of Northams choice of words stands out after that he devoted himself to combating rasistanklagelser for a little over a week’s time. Last Friday started a photo spread from a party in 1984 under the Ralph Northams läkarubildning. On the photo posing two people for the camera: a Ku Klux Klan costume and the one with the painted black face, the so-called ”black face”. The state of Virginia’s historic legacy of slavery, segregation and lynchings reinforced the photo’s symbolism. The governor asked immediately apologize for the photo, when it started to spread, but later made a u-turn and claimed that he was not at all in the picture.
the Democrats in Virginia is struggling with several parallel crises of the moment. Even Mark Herring, attorney general of the state has been criticised since it emerged that he paint his face in ”black face”, during his university career, while the lieutenant-governor Justin Fairfax accused by two women of sexual abuse.
Björn af Kleen: the Governor’s ”blackface”-image, undermine the Democrats ‘ anti-racist profile
