NYT draws fire for calling Virginia AG’s blackface ‘dark makeup’
The New York Times got a dressing down in social media for a headline that featured the phrase “dark makeup” instead of “blackface” in an article about Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring.
Virginia has been rocked by scandals, beginning with Gov. Ralph Northam, whose 1984 medical school yearbook page featured a man in blackface and another in KKK garb. Northam at first apologized for appearing in the racist image but later denied he was one of the two men.
Herring, who had called on Northam to step down, released a statement Wednesday that he also wore blackface in college.
The Gray Lady’s original article read: “Virginia Attorney General Says He Also Dressed in Dark Makeup.”
The euphemistic phrase sparked a backlash on Twitter.
“NYT headline writers what are you thinking? ‘Dark Makeup,” journalist Yashar Ali wrote.
“That the New York Times won’t even use ‘blackface’ in this headline is offensive, damning and — yet again — underscores that protecting whiteness is an institutional standard,” fellow journo Saeed Jones wrote.
The Times later changed the headline, which now reads: “Second Virginia Democrat Says He Wore Blackface, Throwing Party Into Turmoil.”
New York Times Politics Editor Patrick Healy responded to the backlash in a series of tweets.
“Today we published an article about an episode of racist behavior by Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. In doing so, our initial story, headline, tweet and alert used a phrase that wasn’t appropriate.
“The initial coverage was based on Herring’s statement that in 1980, he put on ‘brown makeup’ and a wig to try to dress as the rapper Kurtis Blow while an undergraduate at UVA. We relied on Herring’s quote to inform our initial language; we used the phrase dark makeup in our story,” he continued.
“The coverage should have said blackface; once we realized this, we made the change. It was never my intent to hide the change we were making. This was a breaking news story, and the headlines and text in breaking news stories are often revised and updated.”
The story was also updated “because blackface was the best word to convey the behavior and carried the appropriate connotations,” Healy added.