President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I, for one, don't think anyone's life should be ruined now for wearing blackface 35 years ago. Different times, different sensibilities. Apologize and move on. Now wearing a white hood as a costume is something altogether different. Most intelligent people can sift the two.

 

I wrote a newspaper column about celebrity death pools in the late 2000s. Can't remember who I picked.

 

I am 56 years old so pretty much in the age range of some of the blackface gang. I promise that I never went to a party in blackface and I would like to think I never would have (I never dress in costume of any kind). But as much as we would like to say "They should have known better therefore fuck them and make them step down" I don't think it should be that simple. The 1980's were a long time ago and much of the country was not educated in diversity/inclusion/sensitivity. If a college kid slapped some black on his face to imitate MJ or Prince they were probably doing it to celebrate their talent. While it does seem incredibly horrible today I don't think it raised many eyebrows at that time. Whether a Dem or Rep, I feel strongly that these people should be judged on their life's work and experiences and not on some stupid action 35 years ago. People grow up and evolve. In some cases perhaps they were full blown racists but have changed their views (and their subsequent actions prove this daily) and in other cases they just did not know it was wrong. And before someone compares this to Kavanaugh, it was always wrong to force yourself on another. What he was accused of was rape. In fact if some guy was accused of pinching a girl in a butt in 1982 I would not call for them to step down as we were not particularly educated in this either. Hell one of my favorite movies of all time is The Quiet Man and when The Duke slaps Maureen O'Hara around it is shocking today but was used to show her his love in 1952. Times change for the better.

 

While both are certainly insensitive, I think there is a difference between dressing as a rapper in 1980 as a 19 year old and either dressing in blackface/as a KKK member in med school and making it your yearbook picture. I really don't think that the former disqualifies you for public office nearly 40 years later.

 

This is where Robert Byrd really was problematic for Democrats. And I have no defense.

 

"Virginia in the 1980s was a very terrible time and place to be a part of."
--Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Richmond

 

I was visiting my parents and found a book that I remember reading many times as a kid. The blurb struck me, so I just googled it. On Amazon, the summary is:
When Jill moves to a new neighborhood, she wants nothing more than to grow accustomed to her new surroundings, and make some friends. One day, when walking a neighbor's dog, she meets DeDe, a girl with downs-syndrome. At first, she is a little bit afraid of DeDe, and doesn't want anything to do with her. But after a while, she and DeDe become good friends. DeDe is friendly and caring, even though she isn't quite on Jill's level. Not long after their friendship develops, though, Jill gets to be good friends with the "cooler girls" in her neighborhood. They are quite sophisticated, and are fun to be around. But they refuse to be Jill's friends if they have to hang around DeDe. Now Jill has to choose between the fashionable, more shallow girls who are "prettier and more up-to-date on what's cool" and the girl who could possibly be the best friend she's ever had.

GoodReads uses a contemporary review:
Moving from San Diego to York Falls, Massachusetts, while most of her classmates-to-be are still on summer vacation, Jill finds herself in the awkward situation of having to be nice to Dede, a retarded girl in the neighborhood. Later, when the other girls return, Jill's position becomes still more awkward, and when would-be-ballerina Marla next door invites Jill and two others to see her open in the Nutcracker in Boston--after she'd already, apprehensively, accepted Dede's excited invitation to her special-school Christmas party on the same day--Jill is faced with a hard decision. (Garrigue does make it easier, though, by making Marla such a gushy, self-centered twit.) There are variations on the theme--such as Jill's pregnant mother's concern that her baby won't be normal--and Garrigue works in a lecture from Dede's mother on different causes of retardation as well as the Christmas-party tour of the supportive special school and its pupils. In the end Dede conveniently moves away, but by then Jill has come to value her friendship. Clearly a one-level story, but handled with sympathy and ease.

I can't find the blurb on the back online, but it was much worse. Sensibilities evolve.

 

Nobody has done more to help the poors than your President Trump!

 

Meh. I'm from Northern Virginia and live in Richmond now. We're not a bunch of backward rednecks here. Like any other state, there are rural and urban areas. I'm already sick of people shitting all over us like that bullshit going on in the statehouse is an indictment of the people of the state at large.

 

We can still shit on Virginia for its militant patrolling of I-95 and I-81 for speeders though, right?

 

And 64 between Richmond and the HRBT!