Virginia Gov. Northam refuses to resign, reportedly suggests he's not in that racist yearbook photo after all
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) on Saturday refused to resign from his office despite increasing uproar over the Friday revelation that his 1984 medical school yearbook page contains a photo of a man in blackface and one in Ku Klux Klan robes.
In an statement Friday, Northam confirmed he was in the photo and apologized for the "clearly racist and offensive" costumes, though he did not clarify which costume he wore.
In phone calls Saturday morning, however, he reportedly told told Virginia Democratic lawmakers including State Sen. L. Louise Lucas that he may not be one of the men in the photo after all. He also said he does not plan to resign, though allies like the Democratic Party of Virginia, Planned Parenthood, and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) have called for him to do so.
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"He should have said that yesterday then," Lucas told The Washington Post of Northam's suggestion that he may not be one of the men in the racist costumes. "He just told me he didn't think it's him. And I said, 'Ralph, this is a day late and a dollar short. It's too late.'"
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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