ArcaMax

Amid all the calls for the resignation of Gov. Ralph Northam, who admitted to wearing blackface makeup in the 1980s when he was a medical student, guess which group of Virginia voters is most staunchly supporting Northam?

Would you believe, African-Americans?

Yes, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll taken as the controversy boiled last week, a 58 percent majority of black Virginia residents who identify or lean Democratic said he should remain in office. That's compared with 49 percent of white Democratic voters and leaners.

As an African-American, I was surprised but not shocked to hear that the group that presumably should be the most offended by Northam's youthful indiscretion may well be his strongest supporters as a group.

For one, we tend to be a forgiving group, especially for people who support an equal-rights agenda. We so appreciate the historic civil rights laws that President Lyndon Johnson pushed to passage in the 1960s, for example, that we have all but forgotten the powerful Texan's leadership in the Senate of Southern Democratic opposition to civil rights in the 1950s.

For another, Northam, who acknowledges growing up with "white privilege" in rural Virginia, has an admirable record on poverty and civil rights issues that black voters tend to care about. He has worked to expand health care under Medicaid to the poor and restore voting rights to felons, and he favored the removal of monuments to the Confederacy from public spaces.

No wonder 87 percent of the state's black voters turned out to vote him into office in 2017.

Although the Post poll didn't break out results by age, I am guessing that the polling sample was older than Virginia's general population. We older voters tend to turn out in much larger numbers than younger voters. We also tend to remember the days when segregation and other injustices were so much worse that the wearing of blackface sounds like a minor offense.

All of which gives me a sliver of hope for two other embattled officeholders, freshman Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who have been taking heat for their criticism of Israel.

Omar responded to a tweet opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement with a sarcastic tweet, quoting Puff Daddy's homage to $100 bills, "It's all about the Benjamins, baby." Asked who was paying U.S. politicians to be pro-Israel, she responded, "AIPAC," meaning the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, this country's most prominent pro-Israel lobby and frequent object of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

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