Wife of Virginia governor in blackface debacle has been hit with her own racist scandal — here's what she did

Virginia's first lady Pam Northam is being accused of her own racist scandal after her husband, Gov. Ralph Northam, was forced to explain why his yearbook page had a person in blackface and another in a KKK costume.

A Virginia state employee said that the first lady singled out her eighth-grade child and another African-American student to teach a lesson about slavery.

According to Leah Dozier Walker, Northam handed the two students raw cotton while they were on a tour of the governor's mansion and asked them to imagine what it would be like to be a slave.

"The Governor and Mrs. Northam have asked the residents of the Commonwealth to forgive them for their racially insensitive past actions," said Walker, who is the director of the Office of Equity and Community Engagement for Virginia's education department.

"But the actions of Mrs. Northam, just last week," she continued, "do not lead me to believe that this Governor's office has taken seriously the harm and hurt they have caused African Americans in Virginia or that they are deserving of our forgiveness."

Northam denies the allegation and says no children were singled out.

"I have provided the same educational tour to Executive Mansion visitors over the last few months and used a variety of artifacts and agricultural crops with the intention of illustrating a painful period of Virginia history," she said in a statement. "I regret that I have upset anyone."

Various Democrats called for Gov. Northam to resign after his blackface debacle, but he has so far survived by apologizing and trying to put the episode behind him.

Others called out Northam for his comments defending the practice of killing babies who survived abortions. Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) called the statement "morally repugnant."

"[I]f he can't say that protecting a little baby girl who has survived an abortion is something that we as a society all believe in together," he concluded, "he really should get the hell out of office."

Here's a local news video of the accusation:

Va. first lady Pam Northam responds to complaint from Senate pagewww.youtube.com