Feb. 2 (UPI) — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam apologized Saturday for a racist photo appearing on his page of a medical school yearbook, but said after further contemplation that he was not in the photograph.
The 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook shows one person in blackface and one person in a Ku Klux Klan outfit together in a photograph next to the governor’s name. Northam, a pediatrician who graduated from the school that year, apologized Friday for appearing in the photo, but backtracked that statement in a news conference a day later, saying he was not in the photograph.
Northam also said he has no intention of resigning from office, despite a groundswell of calls to do otherwise from prominent Democrats, such as Virginia Democratic Party chair Susan Swecker and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Northam said Saturday he once used shoe polish to darken his face to look like pop star Michael Jackson in a San Antonio dance contest in the mid-1980s, but after thinking about the yearbook photo and discussing it with other people, Northam said he wasn’t the individual in the KKK robe or the individual in blackface. He suggested photos also mistakenly appeared on other peoples’ pages of the yearbook.
“That is not my picture,” he told reporters Saturday. “That is not my person on the pictures.”
Northam acknowledged the controversy swirling around the photo, which first surfaced Friday on the conservative news website Big League Politics, as well as the calls for his resignation.
“Yesterday, I took responsibility for content that appeared on my page in the medical school yearbook that was clearly racist and offensive,” Northam said. “I cannot and will not excuse the content of the photos. It was racist and despicable.”
Northam added that when his staff showed him the yearbook, he was “seeing it for the first time.”
When pressed about the pressure for him to resign, he said that would be the easy way out and a way for him to dodge responsibility.
“Today, I am not ready to ask Virginians forgiveness for my past actions,” Northam said. “I’m simply asking for an opportunity to demonstrate that the person I was is not the person I am today. I’m asking on the opportunity to earn your forgiveness.”
