Virginia governor Ralph Northam has apologised for appearing in a 1984 photograph showing a person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe.<\/p>\n
He faces calls for his resignation following the publication of a medical school yearbook page, which showed the picture as well as several other photographs of the Democratic leader.<\/p>\n
He confirmed in a statement he was pictured in a costume that was “clearly racist and offensive” and that the behaviour was “not in keeping with who I am today and the values I have fought for throughout my career”.<\/p>\n
It was not clear whether Mr Northam was the person wearing blackface or a KKK costume.<\/p>\n
In a video tweeted shortly after the written statement, the governor said he was “deeply sorry” for the photograph.<\/p>\n
“I cannot change the decisions I made,” he said. “But I accept responsibility for my past actions and I am ready to do the hard work of regaining your trust.”<\/p>\n
Both Republican and Democrat leaders have called for the governor to resign in response to the released picture.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t matter if he is a Republican or a Democrat. This behaviour was racist and unconscionable,” Democrat Julian Castro, an African American who would assume the governor’s office in the event of his departure, tweeted.<\/p>\n
“Leaders are called to a higher standard, and the stain of racism should have no place in the halls of government,” Democrat Senator Kamala Harris said.<\/p>\n
“The Governor of Virginia should step aside so the public can heal and move forward together.”<\/p>\n
Republican State Senator Bryce Reeves said Mr Northam should resign if the photographs were shown to be accurate.<\/p>\n
“I hope that this picture is inaccurate and that the Governor brings clarity to this issue,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Northam, an army veteran and child neurologist, provoked a furore last week with a statement advocating for looser late-term abortions in cases where the health of the mother was at risk.<\/p>\n
Critics accused him of open support for infanticide, with Republican Ted Cruz calling the comments “heartbreaking”.<\/p>\n
Mr Northam said his comments had been taken out of context, saying: “I have devoted my life to caring for children and any insinuation otherwise is shameful and disgusting.”<\/p>\n
But the comments have proved politically explosive in a country where attitudes to abortion are sharply polarised.<\/p>\n
Last week,\u00a0Florida’s secretary of state Michael Ertel also resigned after being pictured wearing blackface<\/strong>, while dressed as a victim of hurricane Katrina.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Skynews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Virginia governor Ralph Northam has apologised for appearing in a 1984 photograph showing a person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe. He faces calls for his resignation following the publication of a medical school yearbook page, which showed the picture as well as several other photographs of the Democratic leader. He …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7467,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions\/7467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}