On blackface.

I cannot tell you how disheartening it has been to be a Virginian this week -- standing by and watching our top elected officials' careers implode.

First it was Governor Ralph Northam. After he made a statement about an abortion bill that abortion opponents deemed too soft, a conservative website got hold of his 1984 medical school yearbook and found, on his page, a photo of two people, one in blackface and the other in a KKK hood. Immediately, folks on both sides of the aisle began calling for Northam, who's a Democrat, to resign.

First Northam apologized for the photo. Then, in a stunning reversal, he said neither of the people in the photo were him and he didn't know why it was on his page. He did, however, wear blackface to dress up as Michael Jackson in his youth. Moreover, he wasn't going to resign.

Then on Wednesday, attorney general Mark Herring, who's also a Democrat, met with members of the General Assembly's black caucus. When the meeting was over, Herring admitted that he too had worn blackface -- at a party in 1980. In a you-can't-make-this-stuff-up twist, before the announcement of his own transgression, Herring had been among those calling for Northam to resign. Now there were calls for his resignation.

Normally in Virginia, if the governor resigns, the lieutenant governor would step up and become governor. But Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax -- a Democrat and the only actual black man of the three -- is now embroiled in his own mess. Two women have accused him of sexual assault. And of course, there are calls on both sides of the aisle for him to resign.

(It's not lost on anyone that if all three men are ousted from their positions, next in line would be the Speaker of the House -- who's a Republican.)

You would think sex assault charges are the more serious. But this is Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy. This is Virginia, where in the late 1950s, under Massive Resistance, the governor ordered public schools in several localities closed rather than submit to court-ordered integration. This is Virginia, where in August 2017 a bunch of white boys brought tiki torches to Charlottesville and one rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one of them.

This is Virginia, where racial prejudice still runs deep.

So this isn't just about blackface. But for the record: blackface is unacceptable.

Library of Congress | Public Domain

The practice of white folks donning makeup to appear black has been occurring for hundreds of years (you can bet Shakespeare's first Othello was a white guy under the paint). It became especially popular in the United States in the 19th century, during the heyday of the touring minstrel show, in which white performers would don blackface with clownish red lips. Wikipedia says, "Stereotyped blackface characters developed: buffoonish, lazy, superstitious, cowardly, and lascivious characters, who stole, lied pathologically, and mangled the English language. Early blackface minstrels were all male, so cross-dressing white men also played black women who were often portrayed as unappealingly and grotesquely mannish, in the matronly mammy mold, or as highly sexually provocative."

The practice continued well into the 20th century, moving from vaudeville to movies (Al Jolson appeared in blackface in the first-ever "talkie," The Jazz Singer) to radio's Amos 'n' Andy.

African-Americans see blackface as demeaning, and they're right. Blackface implies all blacks are like the caricature -- shiftless, lazy, cowardly buffoons -- when of course they are anything but.

In an interview yesterday with the Washington Post, Northam said he believes there's a reason why this has all come out now -- a higher-purpose-type reason. He intends to stay on and finish the rest of his term, and he's adopting as his mission an effort to make Virginia come to terms with racial equality and white privilege. "There are still some very deep wounds in Virginia," he told the Post.

No kidding.

I wish him the best of luck. It would be great to be able to say someday, without embarrassment, that I live in Virginia.

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These moments of head-spinning blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Maybe hate won, after all.

You may have heard that we were anticipating a little dust-up here in DC today. Thank the gods that things didn't get out of hand in any way. But I don't believe we got off scot-free.

As you may know, this weekend is the one-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, just a few hours away from DC. The event was organized by a bunch of white nationalists and fellow travelers, ostensibly to protest plans to remove a statue of Civil War Gen. Robert E. Lee from a city park. Hundreds of people on both sides of the issue showed up to protest and to counter the protestors, sparking numerous violent incidents while police basically stood by and watched it all happen. Then on Saturday, August 12th, a white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. Police arrested James Fields, Jr., and eventually charged him with first-degree murder and several hate-crime-related counts. His trial is set to start in November.

Things have not gone all that well for white supremacists since then. Many of them lost their jobs back home after being identified as participants in the rally. One fellow, Christopher Cantwell (no relation, thank goodness), became known as the "crying Nazi" when he posted a video of himself freaking out after learning the police were after him for the trouble in Charlottesville. Cantwell turned himself in shortly thereafter and has been in jail ever since. Last month, he pleaded guilty to assault and battery, and the judge reduced his sentence to time served; however, he is barred from entering the commonwealth of Virginia for five years.

More infamous white supremacists have also had a rough year. Rally organizer Richard Spencer, who last year moved into Old Town Alexandria, VA, to the horror of his liberal neighbors, has apparently broken his lease and moved out. And the host of InfoWars, Alex Jones, lost the vast majority of his social media platform when Facebook, YouTube, and Apple banned his accounts for violating their terms of service.

But the other organizer of last year's Charlottesville rally decided to do it again anyway. So Jason Kessler applied for a permit for an anniversary rally in Charlottesville. When city officials there were less than accommodating, he decided instead to move the rally to Washington, DC. Perhaps he thought a big rally in Lafayette Park, in full view of the White House, was just the shot in the arm the movement needed (never mind that the President wasn't going to be home). At the same time, organizers went ahead with plans for a commemorative march in Charlottesville, and counter-protestors again made plans to show up and shout them down.

Here in DC, we have seen our share of protests over the years. Besides the big marquee events -- the Million Man March, the Women's March, and so many others -- rallies and protests are practically a daily occurrence in Lafayette Park. The city had to issue Kessler a permit -- and they had to issue a permit to the coalition of counter-protestors who intended to demonstrate against Kessler's group. And then they had to figure out how to keep the two sides from killing one another. Extra security was scheduled; road closures were announced from Foggy Bottom to the White House. A proposal by the board of the Washington Metropolitan Transit Agency to reserve a special train for the Unite the Right ralliers fizzled when the transit workers' union, whose membership is 80 percent people of color, refused to run it.

In the end, it was the rally that fizzled. Fewer than 30 people showed up. Facing a heavy police presence and thousands of counter-protestors, Kessler stayed just long enough to make a speech. Then, as rain began pouring down, they left -- half an hour before rally was originally scheduled to start. The counter-protestors gave them a hearty chorus of "Na na, hey hey, goodbye" as security officers loaded them into vans and drove them away.

It's tempting to be giddy over Nazis turning tail and running from a crowd of thousands arrayed against them. But I'm reminded of some of the cautionary comments made in the days after 9/11, when security measures were being ramped up all around the country: The point of terrorism is to terrorize -- not just to blow things up, but to make people afraid. One guy gets aboard an airliner with an explosive in his shoe, and suddenly all of us are unpacking and undressing in order to get on a plane -- or paying the government a hundred bucks for the privilege of not having to undress and unpack. The goal isn't the bomb. The bomb is only a means to an end. The goal is to make people afraid.

This weekend, in both DC and Charlottesville (where the police seemed more sympathetic to the Nazis than to the counter-protestors), city officials scrambled, platoons of police were mobilized, money was spent on security, and normal people rearranged their lives -- and in the end, it was for no good reason. Sure, we had to be prepared. But no matter how few white supremacists showed up, they still got what they wanted. Even before the event was over, the damage was done.

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These moments of bloggy incitement have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

What would Naomi do?

eric1513 | 123RF.com

Like most of you, I've spent the last 48 hours alternately outraged and horrified by what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, this weekend.

To catch you up: Three people died and 26 were injured in connection with a protest conceived by alt-right groups to protest the Charlottesville city council's plans to take down a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. One of the dead is Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old woman who was attending a counter-protest when a car plowed into the group. The driver, 20-year-old James Alex Fisher Jr. from Maumee, Ohio, is being held on charges of second-degree murder, malicious wounding, and hit-and-run. The Justice Department is investigating and may file additional charges against Fisher. His high school history teacher says Fisher was enamored with Nazis even then.

The other two dead were Virginia State Troopers whose helicopter crashed on landing in a wooded area not far from downtown. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Reaction to the events has been almost unanimously against the neo-Nazis, white nationalists, KKK members, and fellow travelers who conceived of the event. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have condemned the groups' actions. About the only people who have spoken out in support of these groups, in fact, are other white supremacists.

And then there's President Trump, whose remarks could most charitably be described as noncommittal. Instead of condemning the march's organizers, he spoke against "the egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides."

He also tweeted condolences to the family of the dead woman and "best regards to all of those injured."

"Charlottesville sad!" he said in another tweet.

I keep saying I'm not going to turn this into a political blog, but that guy in the White House, who has at least a couple of white nationalists on staff, keeps testing my resolve.

However, I will forbear. Instead, I'll risk turning this post into a shameless plug for my own books by dreaming aloud about how the characters in the Pipe Woman Chronicles universe would react.

As it happens, the Land, Sea, Sky trilogy -- which is part of that universe -- is set in DC, mostly, and not too far in the future. Thanks to the return of the gods to Earth some years before, a powerful coalition of military, industrial, and legislative leaders has been watching its power slip away. The co-conspirators are organizing what they believe to be a foolproof plan to defeat the gods and put themselves on top again. (You may see a parallel here with the white nationalists who would like to claw back majority control of the United States by staging protests like the one in Charlottesville.)

The good guys in Land, Sea, Sky include Sue Killeen, who works as a project manager for a nonprofit called Earth in Balance; Tess Showalter, an investigative reporter for the New World News Network; Darrell Warren, a Potawatomi healer turned Navy SEAL; and their gods. All the gods, actually. And I included cameo appearances by some of the main characters from the original series: Naomi Witherspoon Curtis, Joseph Curtis, and their children, Sage and Webb.

Any of the humans would give the alt-right a run for their money. But I'd especially love to give Naomi a crack at them. Her special talent is pushing people to do the right thing, and she would have a field day with the boys of the alt-right. And in the White House, too. If Naomi could get hold of President Trump, his tweets would sound very different. Believe me.

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These moments of speculative blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.