A United States governor has been urged to resign over a racist photo in which he appeared more than 30 years ago.
Virginia governor Ralph Northam appears to have almost no choice but to leave office after losing support from virtually the entire state Democratic party and other key allies.
The calls for Mr Northam to step down came in a wave after the Democrat had apologised for appearing in a photo in which one person is dressed in blackface and another is wearing a full Ku Klux Klan uniform.
The photo appeared in his 1984 medical school yearbook.
The yearbook images were first published on Friday by the conservative news outlet Big League Politics.
The Virginian-Pilot later obtained a copy from Eastern Virginia Medical School, which Mr Northam attended.
The photo shows two people looking at the camera — one in blackface wearing a hat, bow tie and plaid trousers; the other in a full Ku Klux Klan robe.
In his first apology, issued in a written statement, Mr Northam called the costume he wore “clearly racist and offensive”, but he did not say which one he had worn.
He later issued a video statement saying he was “deeply sorry” but was still committed to serving the “remainder of my term”.
“I accept responsibility for my past actions and I am ready to do the hard work of regaining your trust,” Mr Northam said.
But Mr Northam appears to have virtually no path forward to remain in office without any institutional support.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel