The narrative that we are encouraged to believe, or at least accept, about white people’s youthful flirtations with racism is: that was then, this is now, and I am not that person – if I ever was.   At the beginning of February, we saw a photo from the 1984 medical school yearbook page of Virginia governor Ralph Northam with a man wearing blackface standing next to a man in Ku Klux Klan robes. 

Shortly after that revelation,  Mark R. Herring, Virginia’s attorney general, admitted attending a college party in blackface some 40 years earlier.  These are not news, just individual revelations within the ongoing conversation about blackface in American society.  Comments have flowed across social media as well as print, television and talk radio. Nothing beats the visuals though.

Old yearbooks? Here are two NEW photos posted TODAY. Grace Coddington, current @Vogue contributor, who was creative director for years. She has a lucrative collaboration with @LouisVuitton and @IMG. On her kitchen shelf she has a collection of racist Mammy figurines.   

Fashion, too, has had its moments recently with blackface. 

Read more HERE and opinion pieces HERE and HERE.