can not understand that people can improve themselves and learn from their mistakes.

Otherwise, we'd have to believe that once a criminal always a criminal.. once an thief always a thief ...once an adulterer always an adulterer...once a liar always a liar.

But progressive policies are intended to support people who make mistakes....not condemn them.

a good way to improve yourself or learn from your mistake.

so clearly he has moved on from his past.

It's not a good look. You're working hard, though!

First he apologized after he got caught:

We all have our own boundaries on what that is. For me I think as an adult if you act as a racist you are not qualified to hold office, ever. There are literally thousands of others who could do his job that have never held these beliefs yet alone acted on them as an adult.

Some people don't have the luxury of worrying only about orange face. We have to worry about orange face AND blackface (and other kinds of faces) all at the same time, while also having to deal with people who don't have that burden second-guessing how we handle it.

n/t

We seem to have some Democrats with that problem.

before even supposedly progressive posters notice it?

but back in that time period (and before) maybe it wasn't considered to be so offensive.

If I remember correctly some live stage performances and early TV network programming even had skits with people performing in blackface. I wish I could remember which programs I saw them on. Nobody thought much about it then, apparently.

Anyway, the governor of Virginia will have to go. This issue won't go away until he resigns.

Everyone who was an adult in 1984 had been watching the improvement of civil rights for people of color since the mid 1960s. Were you an adult in 1984? If so, then you knew about racism and that sort of thing, I guarantee.

It was 35 years ago, but it wasn't 100 years ago. The Civil Rights movement started in the 1960s, 20 years before that, and was well understood in 1984.

There's no excuse for someone who was an adult in 1984 not to know that blackface and KKK robes were offensive. Everyone knew that. Some people, however, kept on being offensive and doing such things. They knew it was unacceptable to most people, but they did it because they were racists.

Racism is simply wrong. Always.

Before the 1960s (many of the grandparents of the elders of my family and church family were participants), but I totally agree with you, Mineral Man.

In fact, I find myself agreeing with you quite a bit wrt your opinions. You're "good people."

everywhere. A lot of people weren't aware of it in the 1950s. By the early 60s, there were stories regularly in newspapers nationwide about what was going on. I was in high school then, and remember reading them in the Los Angeles Times and beginning to think about those issues.

I grew up in a small California farm town - a place that still had a "Sundown Law" on the books and where no black person could buy a house. I only became aware of those inequities when I started reading about them in the newspaper. It shocked me, frankly.

I didn't even meet a black person until I was 16 years old. In my town, it was Hispanics who were affected by bigotry. That was shocking too, since many of my school friends were Hispanic.

I started waking up and looking around. I didn't like what I saw.

It came out in 2008.

A non-Black person in the guise of a Black person is a little different. Context matters. Is it objectionable to a Black person? Perhaps so, but we can distinguish the abject mocking and unrelenting derision of Black people by Whites (google Amos n Andy radio show where two white men deride and mock Black people and appeared later in Blackface to do the same and google Mad Men & Blackface) from a movie plot having people don a disguise that does not mock, ridicule or grossly satirize Black people. In Trading Places, the Dan Ackroyd character was on the streets and needed money and he saw the Rastafarians made money or had a good hustle. That is a long way from what Northam's photo evidences.

His reputation has suffered to the extent that he is almost completely forgotten-- mostly because his act has not aged well to say the least. In the modern world, his act could not exist, since it is racist just by using blackface. Interestingly he was way ahead of the curve in civil rights, though he was far from a "nice guy."

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/10/al-jolson-hero-villian/

"No one is all-bad (or all-good). In fact, Jolson was, ironically given the perception today, an early crusader for the rights of African-Americans in show business. For instance, he was instrumental in helping to promote black playwright Garland Anderson’s work, which resulted in the first Broadway production with an all-black cast. He also attempted to have an all-black dance team featured in a Broadway show at a time when black people were banned from Broadway productions.

As black dancer Jeni LeGon said, “In those times, it was a ‘black-and-white world.’ You didn’t associate too much socially with any of the stars. You saw them at the studio, you know, nice—but they didn’t invite. The only ones that ever invited us home for a visit was Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler.”

In another instance, Jolson read that songwriters Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, neither of whom he knew at the time, had been thrown out of a restaurant because of their race. When he heard this, he tracked the pair down and took them out to dinner and reportedly told them, “He’d punch anyone in the nose who tried to kick us out!”

As for his “blackface” persona which seems to (almost literally) fly in the face of his apparent true feelings on race, this persona was often used as a means to introduce white audiences to black culture, and also to make fun of the general idea of “white supremacy.” As such, when black audiences saw “The Jazz Singer,” rather than boycott it, a Harlem newspaper, Amsterdam News (today “the oldest Black newspaper in the country,” according to their website), stated that The Jazz Singer was “one of the greatest pictures ever produced,” and that, “Every colored performer is proud of him (Jolson).”

Jolson also insisted on the hiring and fair treatment of black people at a time when this was an outlandish concept to many in America. (For example, at the time members of the KKK are estimated to have accounted for about 15% of the U.S.’s voting-age population.) He also crusaded for equal rights for African-American as early as 1911, when he was 25. Through his very controversial portrayals, and advocating for black performers, Jolson helped pave the way for the success of such legends as Louis Armstrong, Ethyl Waters, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. As the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture stated, “Almost single-handedly, Jolson helped to introduce African-American musical innovations like jazz, ragtime, and the blues to white audiences.”

Famed African-American jazz singer Clarence Henry noted of Jolson, “Jolson? I loved him. I think he did wonders for the blacks and glorified entertainment.”