I don't think I want to live in a society where we can't believe people mature and become better. [View all]

[Music Man]

What Northam did was reprehensible. With the stain of racism in this country, what he did was truly vile. The 1980s were not a "different time" when it comes to the perception of blackface. Whatever the hell that picture was supposed to be, it was damn stupid.

But I see nothing to indicate this is a pattern of behavior that extends anywhere close to the present day. I have to believe that I'm a better person now than when I was in college, and that was just a decade ago.

I will say that I, a white man, realize that it can be presumptuous of me to assert how we should feel about this incident. Black Americans have been the target of hateful caricatures involving blackface, and when the NAACP, Kamala Harris, or other black people call for Northam to resign, I know it comes from a place of deep hurt that I am reticent to contradict.

That said, I believe even calls for resignation must honestly concede that people can and do change. We have to believe that or we'll become a nation devoid of grace. Of course this had to come about through digging. Northam, like any politician, doesn't lead with this, just like you don't go into a job interview and talk yourself out of a job by revealing every awful thing you've ever done.

God, it's going to be a shitshow when more and more millennials and Gen-Z's seek office, with their lifetimes of texts, videos, pictures, and social media up for grabs.