Earlier this year, images of blackface were uncovered in university yearbooks across the United States. Unfortunately, this appalling example of racist campus culture is still relevant today.

The blackface controversies are opening up a new debate over racial equality in the modern era. Accountability and action are key in order to diminish hate on college campuses.

After the controversy during which photographs depicting blackface published in Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D) medical school yearbook were uncovered, a vast array of similar images were discovered in old university yearbooks across the country by USA TODAY. Northam gave excuses to disassociate himself from the scandal, but his actions are inexcusable.

“I don’t think there is anything he could say that would be more eloquent than what he did say with the mask, which was a kind of speech about his racial feeling, his self-sense of his whiteness, his sense of his relation to the color line between black and white. And any attempt to read his own act of racialized speech would fall short of what he has already said” said Eric Lott, a professor of English at The Graduate Center at the City University of New York and the author of “Black Mirror.” Northam has denied that he was in the photo on his yearbook page.

Political figures who have participated in blackface during their youth shouldn’t get a pass. Accountability is critical.

Current state senators, governors and attorney generals are coming forward with their own participation of blackface during their college years acknowledging their mistakes and how those actions don’t represent their current ideals today. But these excuses downplay the implication of racist practices.

“I’d say that there should be accountability for the kinds of images that appear in campus publications. Allowing blackface or other racist imagery in a yearbook should never happen,” Steven Fein, a professor of psychology at Williams College, said. “Yearbooks and any associated campus publication represent a school and suggest what is considered normative or idealized behavior. Racist imagery can be extremely damaging.”

Even in 2019 we’ve seen, on separate occasions, college students from Oklahoma State University and the University of Tennessee post racist comments and blackface on social media.

There is a desperate need for accountability in American college culture. It has long cultivated a toxic culture that makes racial oppression a novelty that’s fetishized among party and fraternity culture.

Universities have condemned the actions of these students as vile and unrepresentative of campus values, but the same scenario keeps repeating itself on campuses across the nation.

Condemnations are shallow and dismissive of the real problem. Calls for action are required in order to deal with the racially unequal culture in these institutions.

Brittany Zelada is a junior communications and rhetorical studies major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at bezelada@syr.edu.

Published on April 7, 2019 at 11:46 pm