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This morning started off like any other morning. I wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes while the hot water for my tea boiled, poured a bowl of Cinnamon Oat Crunch Cheerios and sat down at my computer to look at CNN.com.
Today there was a story that I found disturbing just from the headline. Once I read the article I was even more mortified. At that particular moment, I was ashamed to be Caucasian.
You see, the article is about a tour the First Lady of Virginia, Pam Northam, gave of the Governor’s Mansion to state Senate pages. As the group entered the mansion’s kitchen cottage, where slaves used to work, the First Lady took a bowl of cotton and had everyone take a piece. “Everyone” included three African American pages, one that’s in eighth grade.
The eighth-grader refused to pick up a piece of cotton, which takes courage and I completely applaud her for that. Mrs. Northam then spoke directly to the three African American children and asked them to think about what it would be like to be picking cotton all day.
You read that correctly. The First Lady of the Commonwealth of Virginia asked African American students, who were standing in a kitchen slaves fixed food in, how it would feel to pick cotton all day. WOW!
I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in. Proceed when you’re ready.
Now, we’re talking about a former high school biology teacher who became a national award-winning science specialist. This is an educated woman, not someone without any education who might not know any better.
Pam Northam knows better!
This isn’t the first incident of racist allegations for the Governor or his family. Governor Ralph Northam is in hot water for possibly dressing up in KKK attire while in college and for wearing blackface to impersonate Michael Jackson.
The governor confirmed, then denied the KKK claim but has admitted to the blackface allegation, according to CNN.
So now we have yet another incident to fuel the debate on whether one race has it in for another and whether the person in question here truly thought it was no big deal to do what she did or if she just wasn’t thinking.
I’m not going to make a judgment either way, because the point of this is to get you to think about the incident and to hear what you have to say about this situation.
That being said, you’re going to have to convince me that a person educated enough and articulate enough to be one of the nation’s top educators wasn’t thinking carefully about her words when speaking to students. In other words, you’re going to have to really make me believe that she simply wasn’t thinking.
Let’s start a conversation about this.
How much harm did this do as a whole to race relations?
What message did the three African American pages get about not only the First Lady but of the State of Virginia government as a whole, because Mrs. Northam was, in fact, speaking on behalf of the state.
Should anything happen to Mrs. Northam? If so what?
Please share your thoughts on this important topic. The only way things get better is through dialogue.
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