The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, recently stepped into a pile of metaphorical poo when it became known that he might have worn blackface in his 1984 medical school yearbook page. I say “might” because at first the governor apologized and then he said he was not in the photo. The state’s attorney general, Mark Herring, followed in the governor’s footsteps and admitted to wearing blackface at a college party in 1980 when he was 19.
What the governor might have done 35 years ago and what the attorney general admits doing almost 40 years ago were not crimes. They were, however, in bad taste and indicative of, as Herring put it, “ignorance and glib attitudes.”
Ralph Northam, who may have been racist at age 25, is now 59 years old. Mark Herring, who may have been racist at age 19, is now 57. The question we need to ask ourselves is, how long should we hold people culpable for the stupid attitudes of their youth?
Life, if properly lived, is a journey to a better version of ourselves. When we’re young, we are influenced by family and friends. But as we live our lives we encounter new experiences, a diversity of people, and a multiplicity of attitudes. We learn and we grow. We become different people. The question we should ask is, who are these men now? We can’t find the answer by looking backward 40 years to their youth.
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