Multiple news organizations are reporting on a recently surfaced medical-school yearbook photo showing a man in blackface standing next to a man in KKK garb on the page for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.
The Virginian Pilot was the first to report on the photo, on Friday. The photo, according to the paper, was from a 1984 yearbook from Eastern Virginia Medical School.
A spokesperson for the school has confirmed the photo’s authenticity, according to a story in Huffington Post.
The politicos are already spinning this.
State Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) defended the governor in a comment to the Washington Post: “His whole life has been about exactly the opposite, and that’s what you need to examine, not something that occurred 30 years ago. “While it’s in very poor taste, I would think no one in the General Assembly who would like their college conduct examined. I would hate to have to go back and examine my two years in the Army. Trust me. I was 18 years old and I was a handful, OK? His life since then has been anything but. It’s been a life of helping people, and many times for free.”
“Racism has no place in Virginia,” Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Jack Wilson said in a statement. “These pictures are wholly inappropriate. If Governor Northam appeared in blackface or dressed in a KKK robe, he should resign immediately.”
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