By Linda Cicoira — Believe it or not, there was something about the recent press conference in which Gov. Ralph Northam denied his association with the racist photograph of a blackface and KKK member that hasn’t been brought to the world’s attention.
Members of the press were standing around waiting for Northam to come out and address the crowd while others like me who were far away watched on our computer screens and TVs. Just before the governor and his wife, Pamela Northam, appeared, the reporters and photographers — “everyone in the sight line of the cameras” — were all told to get down on their knees so a video camera or who knows what else could capture the governor from behind them.
The press did as they were told.
I want to know why the heck there weren’t any chairs. Northam was late for his 2:30 p.m. appointment and everyone was waiting. As a longtime journalist who has replaced knees I was so very glad to be viewing from my Eastern Shore home instead of in person. And yes, I guess, the video helped me see this, but that still doesn’t excuse it.
What would I have done? My knees don’t kneel. They are artificial. Somewhere in this mess is a real discrimination of the handicapped and just plain lack of common courtesy.
Maybe if that changed there would be more unity. Would Northam or any of his staff have wanted to kneel? I doubt it. It likely would have gotten their clothes dirty. It was another example of very poor judgment or leaving things to people who don’t know what they are doing.
I realize my knees don’t amount to the hurt that people feel from being shown their very existence is second class, but making people getting down on the floor is not what I consider good manners. My mother, who wanted Democrat written on her gravestone, would not have approved. When did people start kneeling before the governor, anyway?
According to www.disabled-world.com, “The presumption that everyone is non-disabled is said to encourage environments that are inaccessible to disabled people.”
I’m not saying that if I had been there I wouldn’t have been able to move to the side, but I would have been looked at as being unreasonable, old or cranky, stubborn, or even bitchy, if I hadn’t complied. And that might have caused me to feel a bit of those things while listening to the governor explain himself. Not a good move for any politician but especially one in his situation.