A modern day haunting

Governor Ralph Northam has so far resisted the calls for his resignation in the firestorm which followed the revelation his medical yearbook photos in 1984 showed a man in blackface and another in a KKK robe.   After first saying he was in the photo albeit not saying which character, Northam in a press conference now says he was not and disavows it entirely.   Many prominent democrats have called on him to resign.   I don't know anything about the governor, but the Divine Mrs. M and I lived in southern Md. and the eastern shore of Virginia in the late 1970s and I can well imagine young men at the time engaging in behavior they misinterpreted as playful.  Certainly 99% of them would have disavowed violence against blacks, but the prevailing attitude was one of "benign" racism.  As long as the local black population showed the proper deference, playful racism was as far as the oppression went.  I never saw any hate crimes during my time in the area, but did register the attitudes which would have facilitated it.  Should Northam now pay for that history?  I don't know for sure, but his viability as governor is forever compromised.