In Virginia, the Democratic Governor expressed support for a third trimester abortion bill. Days later, some right-wing outlet publishes photos of his 1984 yearbook showing him in blackface. Predictably, everybody loses their shit.
This isn’t much different from James Gunn’s firing from Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise because of his off-color tweets from half a decade or so ago (which he’d already apologized for in advance before the outrage went viral).
To contextualize: yes, blackface is inappropriate. KKK clothing is inappropriate. But what should be even more inappropriate, is taking photos from someone’s teenage past, and trying to use it to browbeat them 35 years later. That’s just pathetic, and a failure of civil society.
Outrage culture is a fucking cancer.