The debate on alleged blackface racism doesn’t allow for grey areas

Three politicians in Virginia have brought a new meaning to the phrase “succession planning”. In addition, they have changed the harmless school year book into a ticking career timebomb, writes Terry Prone.

The first guy is Governor Ralph Northam, who confessed to wearing blackface in school. This meant he used burnt cork, back in the mid-1980s, to make himself look like an African-American, and right sorry he is for so doing. On the other hand, he says, he is definitely not the blacked-up white student in the picture in his school yearbook and standing beside another student dressed in Ku Klux Klan headgear. That’s someone else, and he isn’t resigning over it.