Rapists and Racism: Drama Unfolds Among Virginia Democrats

Have you been following the Democrat drama coming out of the state of Virginia?

Several weeks ago, the recently seated Governor Ralph Northam found himself in hot water, after an old yearbook photo from his med school days emerged.

A picture on his page of the yearbook featured someone dressed in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood, while another individual was made up with racially insensitive “blackface.”

Northam released an apology on the day the picture was revealed. By the next day, he’d decided deny, deny, deny was the route he would go. Even with many of his own party pressing on him to resign and allow Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax to take the helm, he has refused.

At a press conference, he suggested that the photos in the yearbook were likely mixed up and that it wasn’t him dressed as a Klan member, or in blackface. However, there was that one time when he did dab a bit of shoe polish on his face for a program where he was imitating Michael Jackson…

You can’t make this stuff up.

Earlier Wednesday, the number three administration official in line to take over as governor (in the event Northam steps down), Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring got ahead of the scandal and announced that he also had a photo in his past of himself in blackface.

I covered that here.

Seriously. What is wrong with Virginia Democrats?

Hey, Susan… You skipped over Fairfax!

OH, we’re going to talk about Justin Fairfax.

Lt. Governor Fairfax is next in line, should Northam fall, but then, there’s a small #MeToo matter to attend to.

Vanessa Tyson, a professor of politics at Scripps College in California (currently on a fellowship with Stanford University, this year) , has come forward and accused Fairfax of a 15 year old sexual assault.

On a Facebook post, Tyson stated:

“Imagine you were sexually assaulted during the DNC convention in Boston in 2004 by a campaign staffer,” she reportedly wrote in her post. “You spend the next 13 years trying to forget it ever happened. Until one day you find out he’s the Democratic candidate for statewide office in a state 3,000 miles away, and he wins that election in November 2017. Then by strange, horrible luck, it seems increasingly likely that he’ll get a VERY BIG promotion.”

Fairfax has denied Tyson’s claims, stating that the encounter was “consensual.”

Fairfax, who no doubt has political ambitions and an eye on Northam’s seat, issued a statement on Wednesday.

“At no time did she express to me any discomfort or concern about our interactions, neither during that encounter nor doing the months following it, when she stayed in touch with me, nor the past fifteen years,” Fairfax said in the statement. “She in no way indicated that anything that had happened between us made her uncomfortable.”

It sounds like a powerful case of “He said, she said.”

Considering this new age of “guilty, until proven innocent,” per the Brett Kavanaugh kerfuffle, we should be looking for raging hordes of feminists to be calling for Fairfax’s “manhood” to be mounted at the entrance of the Virginia State Capitol Building, as a warning to others, right?

To date, there are no reports of rape victims cornering Fairfax in any elevator and accusing him of raping them all over again.

Oddly enough (and not even slightly hypocritical), Democrats are calling for restraint, and to “hear the whole story” before jumping to conclusions.

Crazy how partisanship plays into these reactions, isn’t it?

For her part, Tyson released a statement on Wednesday more fully giving her side of events.

“What began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault,” Tyson, a college professor from California, said in the statement. “Mr. Fairfax forced me to perform oral sex on him.”

She also had words regarding Fairfax’s claim of a consensual relationship.

Tyson contradicted Fairfax’s denial, saying, “I cannot believe, given my obvious distress, that Mr. Fairfax thought this forced sexual act was consensual. To be very clear, I did not want to engage in oral sex with Mr. Fairfax and I never gave any form of consent.”

“I suffered from both deep humiliation and shame,” Tyson said, adding that she did not tell anyone for years.

It should be pointed out that Tyson didn’t suddenly pop up with this accusation. In 2018 she went to The Washington Post, but the paper refused to publish it, given a lack of corroboration.

Statement of Dr. Vanessa Tyson, who has accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault in 2004:

“What began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault.” pic.twitter.com/UI9Gz11DWj

— Sarah McCammon

Imagine that.

In addition to being a professor and author, Tyson advocates for sexual assault awareness and prevention, according to the Scripps College website.

She said in her statement that the allegations are not politically motivated and that she is a “proud Democrat.”

There are other similarities between this case and the Brett Kavanaugh mess: Tyson is represented by Katz, Marshall & Banks, the same law firm that represented Kavanaugh accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

Let’s see how this one shakes out. It’ll be a good test of the left’s “believe the victim” resolve.