Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is just one in a series of people whose stories raise the question of how much a public official's distant past should matter; and there's no set rule for figuring out such problems, except that we all should be a little harder on members of our own party or political movement, to counteract possible bias.
Northam appeared (or "appears to have appeared"?) in a photo of one man in blackface in another in a KKK costume. That photo appeared on his yearbook page, which apparently means he chose or approved it.
Initially, he apologized and admitted he was in the photo. "I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now," he said Friday.
The photo appeared in the 1984 yearbook of the Eastern Virginia Medical School. My first reaction to his effort to stay on as governor was that medical school ain't high school and 1984 is along time after 1964. That is, he was reasonably mature, chronologically. Things he did and said, while I'd hate to be judge on everything I ever did in my past, bore more of a relationship to his adult character than would some mischief committed at 16 or 17; and 1984 is a long time after most everyone in this country got the message (or should have gotten it) that such things ain't funny.
Further, with that out there as part of your public identity, you do not feel like "my governor" to a whole lot of people. Blacks and others will never see your name without feeling a certain personal pain. Same if the picture had been taken in a public shower and showed a starving Jewish-looking prisoner and a guy with a Swastika on his uniform. What Jew could see you in office and feel comfortable? What thoughtful person could?
So if asked, I'd already have been on the "he should resign" side of the discussion., he said more -- and told a different story. He denied any prior knowledge of the picture and said he wasn't either person in it.
Now he says, "I am not and will not excuse the content of the photo. It was offensive, racist, and despicable. When my staff showed me the photo in question yesterday, I was seeing it for the first time. I did not purchase the yearbook and I was unaware of what was on the page." He adds, "When I was confronted with the images yesterday, I was appalled that they appeared on my page, but I believed then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo."
As often, the awkward stupidity of the cover-up efforts may be worse than the initial offense.
Obviously his new story contradicts his old one, and also what others from the school had said about who chooses pictures on someone's "page"; but his new story also contradicts his new story!
If he "was seeing the photo for the first time" in 2018, how could he have "believed then" that he was not in it? Further, what would he have to apologize about if he wasn't in it and didn't have anything to do with putting it in the yearbook? And we'll ignore the implications of his uncertainty that he's not in the photograph. Most of us could tell you definitively, in seconds, whether or not, after the age of 12 or 14, we had ever worn a KKK robe or appeared in a photograph wearing blackface.
He says he "understands how this decision shakes Virginians' faith" in his commitment to values of equality, tolerance, and fairness.
Well, if you do, pal, I can suggest a clear and unambiguous way to show that understanding.
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