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In Virginia, they’re trying to figure out who is going to be governor if everyone who qualifies is under heat.
This week a photo of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was discovered showing that he wore blackface in his 1984 med school yearbook. He has been advised by most to step down from his position as governor. The photo shows a man in black face standing next to another person in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe.
Northam admitted at first that he was in the photo without saying which costume he was wearing. A day later, he denied he was in the picture. But he acknowledged he once used shoe polish to blacken his face and look like Michael Jackson at a dance contest in Texas decades ago.
Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would be next in line to be Governor, is facing sexual assault allegations. Which he denies.
Fairfax, 39, issued a statement Wednesday saying it was important to listen to anyone who comes forward with claims of sexual misconduct or harassment. But he said the accusations against him from 2004, while he was a law student, are false and that the encounter was consensual.
His accuser, Vanessa Tyson, is a political science professor at Scripps College in California. She issued a statement saying she met Fairfax at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. She said they chatted from time to time and at one point Fairfax invited her to go with him to his hotel room to pick up documents.
“What began as consensual kissing quickly turned into sexual assault,” she said in the statement issued by her lawyers. She said he physically forced her to perform oral sex.
“With tremendous anguish, I am now sharing this information about my experience and setting the record straight,” she says in her statement. “It has been extremely difficult to relive that traumatic experience from 2004. Mr. Fairfax has tried to brand me as a liar to a national audience.”
So next in line after those 2 men, would be Attorney General Mark Herring who also admitted to wearing blackface once in the 80s, while he was a college student. he wanted to look like a rapper, Kurtis Blow. he was 19.
“In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song,” said Herring, who previously said he would run for governor in 2021. “It sounds ridiculous even now writing it. But because of our ignorance and glib attitudes – and because we did not have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others – we dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup.
“This was a one-time occurrence and I accept full responsibility for my conduct.”
Herring, 57, said shame from the incident “has haunted me for decades.” But he also lists his efforts to “empower communities of color ” by working for equality in the state’s criminal justice and electoral systems and fighting for equal access to health care.
“I will say that from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply, deeply sorry for the pain that I cause with this revelation,” he said.
Northam has said he won’t resign, and on Tuesday he resumed governing.
Written by Clarke Jones
Source: USA Today