New opportunities to break barriers in Va.

A new model of white male allyship emerged on a stage in Wilmington, Delaware, the night of Nov. 7. It looked like a white man coming into the most powerful office in the world handing over his first moment on stage to a woman of color.

And out Vice President-elect Kamala Harris came, radiant in a white suit redolent of the struggle for women’s suffrage, to the honks of people sitting on cars and the brimming tears of mothers and aunties sitting with daughters and sons behind television screens.

“What a testament it is to Joe’s character that he has the audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exists in our country, and select a woman as his vice president,” Harris said.

It took five nights of election results and 211 years of the presidency to get here. President-elect Joe Biden is providing an electrifying new model of white male allyship, and it’s time for Virginians, including our robust pipeline of progressive white men, to take note.

At 77 years old, Biden is the oldest person elected to the presidency. Biden lived through a history that may feel distant to some of the young people who have been swelling the streets for Black lives, sexual assault survivors and Women’s Marches during the past four years. He has made several of his own missteps as a senator during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, as vice president in shaming the fundamental right to abortion, and, as famously noted by then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris during the Democratic primary debates, opposing mandatory busing to desegregate schools.

And yet here we are. Through his campaign, Biden positioned himself as a transitional figure to help the nation come back together after four years of deep division and tumult.

It is worth again pausing on what it meant for Biden to give Harris the stage first with a speech far more rousing than his own powerful, sober and uniting words.

Nowhere is this deep need of this type of allyship and unity needed more than Virginia.

In the past four years, white supremacists have marched through our streets. COVID-19 has ravaged our communities, especially communities of color, and pulled our children from school — bringing the horrifying potential of cementing and further entrenching inequities for generations to come.

We have also grappled with disappointments from our highest elected officials, including racial insensitivity and credible allegations of sexual assault. Coming out of his own yearbook photo scandal, Gov. Ralph Northam pledged to devote the rest of his term to racial equity. This move is to be praised. And built upon.

What does it mean for progressive white men in the commonwealth of Virginia to center and foreground racial equity not just in policy, but in their own political ambitions? What does white male allyship look like when we have a qualified Black woman of our own who has built 15 years of experience, vision and relationships in the General Assembly, who is uniquely positioned to propel Virginia forward during this challenging time? When she could become the first Black woman governor in the nation, breaking barriers from the former heart of the Confederacy?

I would argue white male allyship means looking to President-elect Biden’s example and considering whether now is the time to seek the governor’s mansion. Such leaders of conscience could envision that dais in Richmond on Inauguration Day 2022 with the cheering people, and see what it would look like not to raise one’s right hand but to clap hands, extend hands, and hold hands when it is once again safe to do so.

There is a place for everyone to propel Virginia forward. It is time to meet the moment with new models of white male allyship.

Erin Matson