Ralph Northam backtracks, admits to being in blackface a different time but not in the yearbook

  Yesterday Virginia Governor Ralph Northam apologized after a picture of him in his medical school yearbook surfaced in which he was either in blackface or in a KKK outfit. He admitted he was one of the people in the picture but would not say which racist was actually him.

  Calls for his resignation have been swift and abundant; even Democrats who always supported an actual KKK member, Robert Byrd, are calling for his resignation but at least for now Ralph Northam has no intention of stepping down.

  In fact he has now backtracked and is claiming it is not even him in the picture and that somebody else must have submitted that picture to his page in the yearbook. (Of course he submitted all the other pictures, just not the offending picture.)

  Here is more:

“Yesterday, I took responsibility for content that appeared on my page in the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook that was clearly racist and offensive,” Northam began his statement. “I am not and will not excuse the content of the photo. It was offensive, racist, and despicable.”

Northam recalled his staff showing him the photo on Friday and claimed this was the first time he had seen the photo on his page of the yearbook. He stated that he did not purchase that yearbook.

“I was unaware of what was on my page” in the yearbook, Northam claimed. “When I was confronted with the images yesterday, I was appalled that they appeared on my page, but I believe then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo.”

“I recognize many people will find this difficult to believe. The photo appears with others I submitted on a page with my name on it,” Northam admitted. “Even in my own statement yesterday I conceded that based on the evidence presented to me at the time. The most likely explanation that it was indeed me in the photo.”

“In the hours since I made my statement yesterday, I reflected with my family and classmates from the time and affirmed my conclusion that I am not the person in that photo,” Northam claimed. “While I did not appear in the photo, I am not surprised by its appearance in the EVMS yearbook in the place and time where I grew up, many actions that we rightfully recognize as abhorrent today, were commonplace.”

  So basically he is saying all Virginians were racists back then so it is not surprising a picture like this would make it into his yearbook–he was just one of many racist faces in the crowd.

  But this is the part that I find interesting, if I had ever appeared in either blackface or a KKK outfit I would remember it. If somebody showed me a picture and claimed it was me in blackface I certainly would not think it could possibly be me if indeed there was no chance it was me. So how could Ralph Northam mistake somebody in blackface as being himself?

  Here is how:

“My belief that I did not wear that costume or attend that party stems in part from my clear memory of other mistakes I make in this same period of my life,” Northam relented. “That same year I did participate in a dance contest in San Antonio in which I darkened my face as part of a Michael Jackson costume. I look back now and regret that I did not understand the harmful legacy of an action like that. It is because my memory of that episode is so vivid, that I truly did not believe that I am in the picture in my yearbook. You remember these things.”

  So now his defense is that he did indeed dress up in blackface before, just not this time. That is not much of a defense is it? And notice the word “mistakes” is pluralized, which would indicate he probably dressed in blackface more than once. If you ask me this new defense is more damning than his original admission. Perhaps Ralph Northam should stop talking now…

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium