Spike Lee or Donald Trump?

Can't say I was shocked to see Donald Trump hammering Spike Lee for Lee's Oscar acceptance speech urging folks to choose "love versus hate" in the 2020 election.

But it showed yet again how thin-skinned, self-centered, and, yes, racist Mr. Trump is.

Mocking Lee for reading from notes was sort of a low blow.  I noticed it too; and I'm guessing Lee was pretty near-sighted.  I too try not to use notes; but sometimes when you have an extremely limited time and a lot to say, notes are prudent.  (At a poetry reading or other setting where I use notes, though, I print 'em 16 pt instead of 12, which sure helps, particularly in uneven lighting.)
Trump doesn't use notes, but he also has the privilege of rambling somewhat mindlessly.

Lee didn't mock Trump (a great target, with his obesity and comical hair) or even mention him, but did say what he felt.  Praising "our ancestors who helped build this country" and thanking his grandmother, who sacrificed to put him through college, may seem racist to folks who are willfully blind to what that means, but it's real and honest.   You don't hear Trump thanking his father, who started Trump off with millions and bailed him out a few times when he screwed up.  Not sure whether he feels no gratitude or figures it'd be bad politics to remind folks.    In any case, the contrast between Lee, who struggled against racism and marginalization in the modern world, and Trump, whose enterprises repeatedly went bankrupt and who was given so much, is clear, and not too complimentary to Donald.

Note also that while Lee created movie ideas and struggled to make them into films and get them seen by a wider audience. Trump was a performer.  A ghost-writer wrote the book that established Trump's image as a savvy business guy, which he never was; and then when clever TV folks saw the potential, Trump was a performer.  I suppose he did it well.  (I never saw his show, nor wanted to.  Never even knew of it until one day a huge line of people were waiting outside a building on Battery Street, in San Francisco, to audition for his show, and we had to let one of them in to use the bathroom in our office.)

Lee's shout of "Let's do the right thing!" -- referencing his 1989 film -- reminded me of seeing that film.  Don't remember who I was dating, but we saw it with a Chinese-American friend I'd gotten to know in Hong Kong.  To me, the rhythms and language and sights of the ghetto were pretty familiar; but to Dan they were a revelation.  It was a good film -- but marginalized because of its setting and realism.  Lee had made a good film; but if Trump had made an inferior film, a comedy or love story set among wealthy white kids, it likely would have outdone Lee at the U.S. box office.

I think of Nothing but a Man, which is on my mind because Robert M. Young, who made it in 1965, visited Las Cruces recently, though I didn't get to see him because of other commitments.  That film was an excellent view of the U.S. South through the eyes of a black man, just trying to be a man.  He doesn't have any rebellious agenda, he's not organizing folks, he just wants to live and maybe look people straight in the eye instead of looking deferentially at the ground around white folks.  (I still recommend that film to anyone who wants an unvarnished look at the time and place, not at all over-dramatized -- even understated, as I recall. (I did get to thank him for it in person, in the early 1980's, when he made The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.)

But that film brings to mind the lingering effects of racism even during my lifetime, even  now.  Most folks are aware of it now, though I don't guess Donald gives it much thought.  Spike probably helped make white folks a little more aware of it -- despite themselves, in some cases.

Is it overstating the contrast between these men to notice that while Lee's film, BlacKKKlansman, is about that lingering racism, which many would deny, Trump appeals to just the kinds of folks who holler white supremacist slogans at marches, and likely say worse in private?  If one looks honestly at Donald Trump, and treatment of blacks during his business life, or his reference to "shithole countries" populated by non-whites, -- Lee's suggestion to choose love over hate doesn't seem a bit overstated.
                       -30-




President Trump on Monday lashed out at Spike Lee after the director used his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards to urge viewers and attendees to choose "love versus hate" in the 2020 election.

e nice if Spike Lee could read his notes, or better yet not have to use notes at all, when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts,etc.) than almost any other Pres!" Trump tweeted.

Lee, who won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for his work on "BlacKkKlansman," did not explicitly mention Trump in his acceptance speech on Sunday night. 

He praised "our ancestors who helped build this country" after invoking the history of slavery, and thanked his grandmother, who helped put him through college.

“The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize,” Lee said to cheers. “Let’s all be in the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate,” he exclaimed.

“Let’s do the right thing!” said Lee, a reference to the name of his 1989 film of the same name.

Trump has drawn repeated criticism for his rhetoric toward minority groups, with some progressive lawmakers and critics labeling him racist.

He has reportedly referred to Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations as "shithole countries"; he said "both sides" were to blame for violence at a white nationalist rally in 2017; and for many years he pushed the false conspiracy theory that former President Obama was not born in the U.S.

Footage of the 2017 white nationalist rally appears in "BlacKkKlansman."

In response to criticism over his handling of race issues, Trump often touts historically low unemployment numbers for African Americans, Hispanics and other minority groups.

TAGS DONALD TRUMP

 

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"Constitutional Sheriffs" Ain't too Constitutional

I'm glad we elected Kim Stewart sheriff. 

Her opponent was hooked up with a right-wing cult called the “Constitutional Sheriffs Association,” which holds that sheriffs outrank federal law-enforcement. Joe Arpaio and Clive Bundy are big supporters. It grew from the old Posse Comitatus. (Jews exploit Christian farmers through taxes and unfair loans.) 

These folks favor stronger penalties for illegal border-crossings and refuse to enforce laws they don't like. 

They mouth the same tired rhetoric against gun laws. N.M. Senate Bill 8 would require universal background checks. “Constitutional” sheriffs say such laws are unconstitutional – something even the conservative U.S. Supreme Court has not said yet. Essentially, these guys would refuse to enforce New Mexico laws they don't like. Non-lawyers, they'd use the U.S. Constitution as an excuse. 

They say that gun-laws will merely inconvenience law-abiding gun owners, while criminals, by definition, will ignore the law. I've asked some of my friends whether the same arguments apply to laws against murder, robbery, and child molestation. Criminals will be criminals, so why bother?

Well, we bother because: first, laws may have some deterrent effect; second, if we forbid known wife-beaters from owning guns, then if a known wife-beater threatens with a gun, or someone has knowingly put a gun into a known wife-beater's hands, we can impose appropriate punishment, and/or perhaps get someone off the streets for awhile. 

Their stance is all the more puzzling because they must know the statistics. In the U.S. in 2016, 93% of the women killed by men were murdered by someone they knew, and the most common weapon used was a gun. I've known for decades that domestic disputes are the calls that most often get cops killed. A lot of these men are neither confirmed criminals, planning to knock over a 7-11 with a gun, or carjack your Prius, nor wholly law-abiding. They are normal people, living their lives unexceptionally, except when they get drunk, or they get really angry, or a spouse rolls her eyes . . . and they lose it. It's not as clear as with a repeat armed-robbery offender, that the domestic-abuse suspect is going to buy a gun, with no regard at all for the law. And if he does violate the law by buying a gun, or by failing to register it, that's a ready-made legal basis for cooling off the domestic situation by removing the offender for awhile. Could save a few lives. Though you or I might have to spend an extra half-hour filling out papers.

I don't purport to know the answers. I wish we could seek those answers cooperatively, with my ex-DASO friends who know much more than I do; but they too hew to the NRA line of “NO to all gun laws!” – or express the paranoid view that any and all restrictions and regulation requirements are all sub rosa steps toward confiscating everyone's guns. Which wouldn't work in New Mexico, practically or politically – and which would violate the Second Amendment. 

Absent their help, I'm left to wonder why they deign to register their cars, instead of cowering in fear that we libtards are plotting to confiscate all cars in the name of fighting climate-change.

“Do nothing because nothing you can do will completely solve the problem” ain't an answer these guys would accept if investigating a cop-killing or trying to stem the tide of drunk-driving.

I'm glad our sheriff follows laws.

                                              -30-

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 24 February 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website.  A spokenn version will air during the week on KRWG Radio and KTAL 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org).]


[The 93% figure cited in the column came from a 2018 study . . .  But it's not controversial.]

[The repeated argument that we should enact no gun-control laws because none of them will solve the problem is odd.  It's odd because there are so few fields in which the failure of a law or ordinance to solve the problem completely somehow bars enacting something that will partially solve the problem.  I don't hear these guys arguing against anti-DWI measures because even if you put in a governor, where the nine-times-convicted driver has to blow into a tube to start the car, s/he will drink anyway and get a pal to blow into the gizmo.  I don't hear them saying, "Let's do away with homicide laws, because most of the time people who commit murders are so worked up that a law wouldn't dissuade them."  They don't say, "Let's not bother carrying guns any more, because there'll be times we don't get them out and cocked in time."]

[The 2nd Amendment is another red herring.  Yes, it exists.  Yes, in Heller the U.S. Supreme Court ignored a century of precedent and the amendment's actual wording to find an individual right to carry guns that's independent of the need for a competent militia.   Whatever I may think, I didn't have a vote, so I live with the result -- as my ex-DASO friends and the CSA must also do.  Even though the decision was startlingly friendly to gun-owners, and expanded the reach of the 2nd Amendment, Heller did NOT ban gun-registration or reasonable firearm restrictions.  It specifically cited automatic weapons as something that perhaps could and should be regulated or prohibited. It certainly did not bar trying to keep guns out of the hands of wife-beaters.  So from just where do these "constitutional sheriffs" get their constitutional law courses?]


[Washington State is experiencing what we may soon see: 13 rural county sheriffs refusing to enforce gun laws.  There, 60% of the state's voters approved a law tightening rules on background checks for semi-automatic weapons and prohibiting anyone under 21 from buying them.  In certain rural counties where the new rules didn't gain a majority, sheriffs are refusing to follow the law.  Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer said, "I follow the rule of law, when I believe it's constitutional."   Washington's lawmakers think the law is constitutional; but the NRA doesn't, so Sheriff Bob has just the company he deserves.  By contrast, King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht argued that "as law enforcement leaders, we defy our oath and betray the public trust if we pick and choose which laws we will uphold."]

The Wisdom of Fortune Cookies

“Fear is the darkroom in which negatives are developed.” So said a fortune cookie at a local restaurant Thursday. 

“Of the many factors that make up your worldview, one is more fundamental than any other in determining which side of the divide you gravitate toward: your perception of how dangerous the world is. Fear is perhaps our most primal instinct, so it’s only logical that people’s level of fearfulness informs their outlook on life.” So write two political scientists in Prius or Pickup. (We have both.) They say our deep political divisions aren't over policies, but between the “fixed” worldviews of people wary of change and suspicious of outsiders, and the “fluid” worldviews of those comfortable with social change and “welcoming of people who look and sound different.”

Fear seems a major factor in our country's current policies and actions.

Ironically, a recent Pew poll of 26 countries showed: (a) that people's greatest security concern is climate change (which brings out the ostrich in Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans); (b) Islamic terrorism is second; and (c) people's most rapidly increasing fear is us. U.S. power and policies.

Fear is essential to survival. Alertness to danger and close observation of surroundings have saved my life. I don't suggest we step blissfully off cliffs like the Fool in the Tarot.

But when fear dominates someone's mind, s/he either stays home all the time or lashes out preemptively at others – or, less dramatically, misses out on a whole lot of life unnecessarily.

It is no different when fear dominates a nation. Our “fear-dominant” moments include the McCarthy Era and the briefer “Red Scare” soon after World War I. September 11 catapulted George Bush's poll numbers from a historic low to a historic high almost overnight. That doesn't mean we had nothing to worry about at any of those times; but hysteria makes us jail leftists with long names (1919-20) put patriotic citizens with Japanese heritage into camps (1942), and blacklist people who are guilty of no crime and pose no danger (1950's); and ban all travelers from whole countries, including nationalities from which no terrorist had ever attacked us.

In other countries, appeals to fear have turned democracies into dictatorships. Hitler is just the most famous example. Citizens of Perú, Russia, and Venezuela all experienced that transformation. (I strongly recommend How Democracies Die.) Frightened people will let things slide a little, such as press freedoms, civil liberties, and fact-based policy-making. A little snowballs into more.

There's plenty of political room between “an open border,” which almost no one advocates, and treating refugees and illegal immigrants as a danger to our national security. That's nonsense. Refugees seeking asylum are fleeing unbearable conditions in their home countries. The U.S. shares some responsibility for those conditions in many countries. Since the root cause of people's flight is conditions at home, policies ameliorating those conditions might work better than treating these people as if they were armed invaders or terrorists. (You got a fire down the block, do you mow down fleeing people with an AK-47 'cause they're trespassing, or call the fire department?)

Yes, there are more of those people right now than at earlier times; and, yes, that creates certain administrative problems; but we are not being “invaded.” Illegal immigration is down; and folks who enter illegally seeking work aren't attacking us. 

My fortune cookie fortune read, “Greet each morning with curiosity and hope.”

                                            -30- 

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 17 February 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website KRWG's website.  A spoken version airs during the week on KRWG (Wednesday and Saturday) and on KTAL, 101.5 FM --  www.lccommunityradio.org -- (Thursday).]

[Discussing fear also reminds me that about six years ago, when Keith Whelpley and I co-hosted a daily discussion show on a commercial station, we were followed by Rush Limbaugh.  The folks who called us largely shared his point-of-view, so it was a lively and sometimes draining two hours.  At some point the station gave us a manual on doing talk-radio.  Some of it was sound advice, like going into a station break not by saying "We gotta take a break now" but "When we return from break, I'm going to ask Joe about the time he was attacked by lions and only had a knife to defend himself    with."  But at some length it explained, quite explicitly, that the key to being a successful talk-radio host is to convince listeners of a grave danger and that only you can deliver them from that danger.  Then you got 'em.]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

44 Years Ago in Las Cruces -- A Young Reporter Learns the Ropes

Forty-four years ago this week I started work as the Las Cruces Bureau Chief for The El Paso Times. 

 

It was a different town in a different time. Cruces was much smaller then, though it had added a second high school. Telshor Boulevard was quite new, and there was nothing but desert between it and the Cox ranch house up in the Organ foothills. I-10 met up with I-25, but didn't continue through town. Folks used University Avenue, Valley Drive (“Truck Bypass”), and Picacho to get back on I-10 toward Deming. One of the town's biggest businesses was the Palms Motel on Picacho. The county commission was three people, and met in a tiny room in the courthouse. Tommy Graham was mayor. Bob Munson and Albert Johnson were on the city commission, each to become mayor within a few years. 

 

I wasn't a journalist. I needed to make money. I lived cheaply, in a big green school bus I'd driven from Brooklyn back to Las Cruces. I'd been substitute-teaching a little, and working part-time as a night projectionist, showing Deep Throat and similar flicks, way out in the county. (Just that one memory speaks to how much things have changed!)

When editor Fritz Wirt interviewed me, all I could give him as a writing sample was some poems.

I knew nothing of local politics. After my civil rights work and antiwar activities, I'd thought of myself as exiled (or self-exiled) from mainstream society. I told friends the new job would be “a crash course in Middle America.” With long, braided hair and a motorcycle, I was such an oddity that Graham, after watching me plunk my helmet down on the reporter's table at a city commission meeting, mockingly dubbed me “Captain Zoom,” which some old-timers still call me. 

 

It was intense. The Times wanted to increase its presence in Las Cruces. I covered everything, from murder to county fair hog competitions. The “bureau” was the bus, staffed by the dog and me. Naturally curious, I threw myself into the work. I became immersed in local life, and all the ideals and cynicism, joys and sorrows, and ups and downs that entailed. 

 

People talked to me. I had no dog in any local fights; the Times was miles away in El Paso, impervious to local pressures; and people figured the crazy biker probably wouldn't get intimidated into revealing his sources. Therefore, whenever local authorities wanted to keep something secret, people whispered to me, and I broke the story before the Sun-News.

  

It was a different world. I dictated stories on the phone or used some primitive ancestor of the fax machine. Gannett was building the Times, not shrinking it. Newspaper and radio were what there was for local news. No Internet. No cell-phones. Computers were huge things few had actually seen. People who were gay kept that fact to themselves, to survive. 

 

But it was also the same. Occasional stirrings of hope for the Las Cruces Airport; exciting changes that outside experts said would make downtown special (then, the new downtown mall, now, relief that we've gotten rid of it); a long-time mayor facing a challenge; and impeachment under discussion for a president who'd committed crimes, or tried to cover them up. 

 

Those three years with the Times deepened my love for this place, taught me that there are almost always two sides to any story, and created many lifelong friendships.

                                                          -30- 

[The column above appeared this morning, Sunday, 10 February 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website.  A spoken version will air during the week on both KRWG Radio and KTAL-LP, 101.5 FM, (www.lccommunityradio.org)] 

[There's a lot more to say about that time.  It was eventful.  Jerry Apodaca's election as Governor in 1974; Bob Munson was a truly interesting person, and I remember too well the time when he and Diana died tragically in the crash of a small plane in 1977; Countess Jones was a wonderful, older reporter, working as a radio journalist, a staunch Republican with whom I was often allied on press freedom issues and others we just saw as "commonsense" or "good government" point; and there were so many other folks I got to know and enjoy.  From that, I'll add a couple of anecdotes below.  The "Bureau" was so successful that after awhile we got an office (130 South Water St.] and another reporter, and an assistant.  Meanwhile I got kind of interested in law.  I watched trials, and realized trial-lawyering would involve a couple of things I had done a fair amount of, advocating causes in public and acting; and when  I covered lawsuits involving the city or county, lawyers would show me the relevant statute or contract and explain how each side interpreted the language, and I would enjoy the discussion and sometimes point out a third possible interpretation (an intellectual exercise known as "statutory construction," although I certainly didn't know that phrase yet); so I bought some book in a drugstore on the LSAT, and started doing pieces of the test when I was eating supper, as I might have read the bridge or chess column or (later) done the sudoku.  I enjoyed it, and decided maybe I'd go to law school; but as Las Cruces had none, I had to leave town; and although I returned here most every year after I left, if I was in the country, it took me about 34 years to get back here to live.]

[One thing I learned was that if you reported the facts and quoted both sides (or all sides) a lot, the stories went over pretty well with everyone.  The Democrats, or the plaintiffs in a lawsuit, or the city commission would see their sides' quotes and feel pleased that the story expressed them, and they'd see the quotes of what their opponents or critics had said, all of which they thought was dishonest nonsense, and be glad I'd shown up those bastards by quoting 'em.  One of the clearest examples was the morning after my weekly TV show on KRWG.  I usually had several guests with different views on an issue; but Bob Munson (who'd become a close friend, though I also often criticized him) had been defeated for re-election to the commission.  He was pretty thoughtful and interesting, so I had him on as my sole guest for the whole hour, and we just talked.  The next day, when I went on my rounds as city hall, I had at least one employee invite me in, close the door, and say, "Thanks for showing Bob as the wonderful leader he was!" while at least one other did the same and said, "Man, I am so glad you nailed that sonofabitch!"  I thanked 'em each, and felt like maybe I'd learned something.]

[Let me add one suggestion, irrelevant to the column: see the LCCT production of The Crucible!  Next weekend will be the last, but its brilliant theater -- miraculous theater for a small city in New Mexico.  A great (and, sadly, perennially relevant) play greatly performed. ]

Mourning Someone Who Mattered

Some people you know immediately, even if you don't know them.

One such person was a grey-bearded, long-haired gentleman who testified frequently when I was a grand jury foreman. He worked for the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Department.  He frequently risked his life, but seemed kind and gentle.  

I think we were both amused that the guy administering the oath looked almost as scruffy as the witness. We always shared a smile. Sometimes made each other laugh. He always testified clearly and concisely. I never had to ask a follow-up question to make sure he covered some required detail. I think everyone liked him.

When he was leaving the building, he hugged the Assistant DA and the folks working there. Real hugs. He cared.

He also had one of the most infectious grins I'd ever seen.

I talked with him once about having coffee and writing a column on him. But he would have had to get permission from his superiors. And Sheriff Vigil wasn't real fond of my columns. So we didn't pursue it.

My grand-jury service ended. I never saw him again.

Tuesday I saw his picture in the paper. John Duffy. He killed himself.

Thursday, I went to his memorial. I felt the community's loss, and mine. I felt a need to be one more anonymous figure in the church, bearing witness. Show my respect and sadness.

It was at Mesilla Park Community Church, in the old K-Mart. The vast parking lot was full, a rare sight. Behind a dozen LCPD motorcycles and the funeral vehicles, a motorcycle hearse waited, followed by about two-dozen very clean machines.

Inside, the huge room was packed. People who knew him well, loved him. A lot of them. Family, friends, law enforcement folks.

Manion Long, a very senior DASO officer, recounted that the new sheriff, Kim Stewart, had said, “We'll celebrate his life, and honor his memory.”

Long mentioned Duff's “infectious smile and the most honest eyes I've ever seen.” Duff loved people but preferred animals. Long related some professional adventures he shared with Duff, and read a citizen's appreciative letter ending, “Now I know that angels sometimes wear black.” He added, “Most of us who are in need of rescue are the best at hiding it.” True, that. When I saw the Sun-News article, it struck me that from now on I'll worry most about the people who smile most.

When I got in my car to leave, the radio was airing my voice, reading last Sunday's column.  I sounded as if I knew something. I felt like I didn't know anything. Not when so many good people keep dying this way.

So please go hug someone. Or telephone someone to say you care. Maybe someone extremely cheerful and caring, because I'm beginning to wonder if they're the most vulnerable. But someone. Or, if you feel some temptation to do as Duff did, reach out instead. Remember, even when you doubt it, people love you. If Duff could have foreseen that huge roomful of love and pain in the old K-Mart, it might have helped.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). For more info, visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

                                          -30-

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 3 February 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website.  A spoken version will air periodically on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org ) during the week.] 

Yeah, You Should Resign, Fella!

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is just one in a series of people whose stories raise the question of how much a public official's distant past should matter; and there's no set rule for figuring out such problems, except that we all should be a little harder on members of our own party or political movement, to counteract possible bias.

Northam appeared (or "appears to have appeared"?) in a photo of one man in blackface in another in a KKK costume.  That photo appeared on his yearbook page, which apparently means he chose or approved it. 

Initially, he apologized and admitted he was in the photo.  "I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now," he said Friday.

The photo appeared in the 1984 yearbook of the Eastern Virginia Medical School.  My first reaction to his effort to stay on as governor was that medical school ain't high school and 1984 is along time after 1964.  That is, he was reasonably mature, chronologically.  Things he did and said, while I'd hate to be judge on everything I ever did in my past, bore more of a relationship to his adult character than would some mischief committed at 16 or 17; and 1984 is a long time after most everyone in this country got the message (or should have gotten it) that such things ain't funny.

Further, with that out there as part of your public identity, you do not feel like "my governor" to a whole lot of people.  Blacks and others will never see your name without feeling a certain personal pain.  Same if the picture had been taken in a public shower and showed a starving Jewish-looking prisoner and a guy with a Swastika on his uniform.    What Jew could see you in office and feel comfortable?  What thoughtful person could?

So if asked, I'd already have been on the "he should resign" side of the discussion., he said more -- and told a different story.  He denied any prior knowledge of the picture and said he wasn't either person in it.

Now he says, "I am not and will not excuse the content of the photo.  It was offensive, racist, and despicable.  When my staff showed me the photo in question yesterday, I was seeing it for the first time.  I did not purchase the yearbook and I was unaware of what was on the page." He adds, "When I was confronted with the images yesterday, I was appalled that they appeared on my page, but I believed then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo."

As often, the awkward stupidity of the cover-up efforts may be worse than the initial offense.

Obviously his new story contradicts his old one, and also what others from the school had said about who chooses pictures on someone's "page"; but his new story also contradicts his new story!

If he "was seeing the photo for the first time" in 2018, how could he have "believed then" that he was not in it?  Further, what would he have to apologize about if he wasn't in it and didn't have anything to do with putting it in the yearbook?  And we'll ignore the implications of his uncertainty that he's not in the photograph.  Most of us could tell you definitively, in seconds, whether or not, after the age of 12 or 14, we had ever worn a KKK robe or appeared in a photograph wearing blackface.

He says he "understands how this decision shakes Virginians' faith" in his commitment to values of equality, tolerance, and fairness.

Well, if you do, pal, I can suggest a clear and unambiguous way to show that understanding.
                                                              -30-