Florida politician is rejecting calls to resign after a high school photo showing him in blackface

A Florida politician is rejecting calls to resign after a high school photo showing him in blackface surfaced — claiming the image was merely a prank with a black classmate.

State Rep. Anthony Sabatini, a 30-year-old Republican representing House District 32, said the image showing him as a teen with darkened skin while wearing sunglasses, a New York Yankees cap, a do-rag and gold chains has been “decontextualized” since his days at Eustis High School, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

“I’m 16 years old, one of my best friends of the time was black, and we thought at the time — looking back, it was immature — it would be funny to dress as each other,” Sabatini told the newspaper. “He dressed in my clothes — a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, shorts, Converse — and I dressed in his clothing … None of us thought 14 years later any of us would be a public figure and the photo would be decontextualized.”

Sabatini insisted that the controversy surrounding the image, which has resurfaced on social media after being mailed anonymously to media outlets in Lake County prior to his defeat of Democratic Cynthia Brown in November, had “zero” in common with the blackface scandals that prompted Florida Secretary of State Michael Ertel to resign and calls for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to do the same over a racist photo in his medical school yearbook from 1984.

Sabatini, who denied the photo was racist, accused the Democratic Party of doing “whatever it takes to influence” elections in the Sunshine State, including “going into high school yearbook pictures of you.”

But Brown on Monday renewed her call for Sabatini to resign over the photo, calling the behavior “mean, cruel and unacceptable for anyone,” particularly an elected official.

“Floridians need to know that our elected leaders will not accept this behavior and will stand consistently in opposing racism,” Brown wrote on Facebook.

Brown said in a separate post that the specifics behind the photo, including how old Sabatini was at the time and his political party today, should not factor into the discussion on whether he should step down.

“Anthony you cannot represent ALL of the people of our district, just as the Florida Secretary of State decided he couldn’t,” Brown wrote. “Do what is right for once, step down and resign.”

The state’s Democratic chair, Terrie Rizzo, echoed Brown’s sentiment, calling for Sabatini to step down in a statement released Tuesday.

“Governor DeSantis did the right thing in accepting Michael Ertel’s resignation — and he and Leader Jose Oliva should do the right thing and ask for the resignation of Rep. Anthony Sabatini,” Rizzo’s statement read. “In calling out racist behavior Florida Democrats and Republicans should stand united.”

A message seeking comment from Sabatini early Wednesday was not immediately returned.

Sabatini’s high school friend, meanwhile, defended the image picturing Sabatini and himself, saying he didn’t understand the controversy surrounding it.

“Every year at high school homecoming week, we had things like ‘80s day and celebrity days,” Brandon Evans told the newspaper. “We said, ‘I’m going to be you and you’re going to be me.’ I don’t know how it got to be seen as racial. That’s all it was.”

Sabatini, a native of New York state whose campaign website billed him as a “true conservative,” defeated Brown by 13 percent in November, one month after the photo initially surfaced.

“When we were 15, 16 sophomore year, it was OK to joke around like that,” Sabatini told the Orlando Sentinel in October. “It’s changed, OK? There is definitely a different standard. I get it.”

Asked if he would be photographed in blackface again, Sabatini said at the time: “Are you joking? Of course not.”

via: https://nypost.com/2019/02/06/florida-pol-rejects-calls-to-resign-over-high-school-blackface-photo/