By Marie Albiges and Gordon Rago
Staff writers
NORFOLK
A photo from Gov. Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook shows two men, one in blackface and one in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood, on the same page as the governor.
The photo, which The Virginian-Pilot obtained a copy of Friday from the Eastern Virginia Medical School library, comes from the 1984 yearbook, the year Northam graduated.
On the half-page set aside for Northam, there is a headshot of him in a jacket and tie, a photo of him in a cowboy hat and boots and a third of him sitting casually on the ground, leaning against a convertible.
The fourth photo on the half-page has two people, one wearing white Ku Klux Klan robes and a hood, the other with his face painted black. The person with the black face is also wearing a white hat, black jacket, white shirt with a bow tie and plaid pants. Both are holding canned drinks.
It’s unclear who the people in costume are.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday afternoon.
Under the photo of the men in blackface and the Klan hood are listed Northam’s alma mater, Virginia Military Institute, and his interest: “Pediatrics.” His quote is listed as “There are more old drunks than old doctors in this world so I think I’ll have another beer.”
The photo came to light after a week in which the Democratic governor came under fire for his comments about a bill introduced by a first-term Democratic lawmaker that would have loosened restriction abortions in Virginia.
Conservative news outlet Big League Politics first posted the photo at around 2:15 p.m. Friday with the headline “YEARBOOK: Ralph Northam In Blackface & KKK Photo”.
About an hour later, the Virginia GOP caucus Twitter page tweeted, “@governorva needs to explain this immediately.”
Northam’s comments earlier this week were on a bill that would have loosened restrictions in third-trimester abortions. State law says they are legal — and it doesn’t specify up to what point in the third trimester a woman can have an abortion — but Del. Kathy Tran’s bill would reduce the number of physicians that need to sign off on abortions from three to one.
It would also change the standard for having a third-trimester abortion — from a physician declaring that continuing the pregnancy would result in death and “substantially and irremediably impair the mental or physical health of the woman” to just “impair” a woman’s mental or physical health.
The bill, which Democrats have tried to pass in the General Assembly in recent years, was killed in a subcommittee.
On a radio show, Northam — a child neurologist — defended Tran’s bill, saying it was “blown out of proportion.”
“When we talk about third trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother with the consent of the physicians — more than one physician, by the way — and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that is nonviable,” he said.
Explaining what would happen in such a case, Northam made comments that were soon seized on by political opponents and others: “The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
https://pilotonline.com/news/governm...d70e09b50.html
[Reply]
Originally Posted by BleedingRed:
Keep believing what you must to vote for the party of KKK and Segregation.
The Civil Rights Act and the end of segregation were championed by Democrats:
The Act itself was not cleanly split along party lines as they were in the middle of civil rights-related realignment, but it was a very clean split geographically:
Northerners supported the Civil Rights Act. Southerners did not. At the time, there were still many Democrats in the South. Today there are not (at least, not among white people). This is why.
[Reply]
Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief:
Yes, they sincerely believe babies can be killed up to 40 weeks of pregnancy.
What's especially hilarious about this argument from the right is that it inherently accepts the left's framing of the issue: that the farther along the pregnancy is, the worse the abortion is.
If you think abortion is murder, it should be murder at any point! When you get mad about
40 weeks, you're admitting that the left is correct about it being fine at 10 weeks. Great work owning yourselves!
:-):-):-):-):-):-):-)
[Reply]
