Gov. Northam refuses to resign
Refusing calls to resign, the Virginia governor outlines plans to move ahead.
He vows to focus his remaining term on ensuring equal opportunities for black Virginians.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, in his first interview since a racist photo from his medical school yearbook came to light this month, promised to pursue racial reconciliation as the Democrat defended his vow to stay in office despite widespread calls for his resignation.
Northam, 59, said he wants to spend the remaining three years of his term trying to ensure that black Virginians have the same opportunities as whites.
The governor seemed chastened and subdued as he described a week of grappling with what “white privilege” means, with the reality of African American history and with the personal failing of growing up after desegregation and the civil rights era while somehow not realizing that donning blackface is offensive.
“It’s been a horrific week for Virginia. A lot of individuals across Virginia have been hurt,” he said Saturday.
He said that he is monitoring the situation involving Democratic Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who is denying two sexual assault allegations revealed last week, but that he has not decided whom he might appoint as a replacement if Fairfax heeded calls to resign.
“It must take tremendous courage for women to step forward and talk about being the victim of sexual assault,” Northam said. “These allegations are horrific; they need to be taken very seriously. Lt. Gov. Fairfax has suggested and called for an investigation. I strongly support that.”
The governor reiterated his assertion that he is not in the photograph that shows one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan outfit but could not say how it wound up on his yearbook page, nor why he initially took responsibility for it, other than to say that he was “shocked” when he first saw it Feb. 1.
“I overreacted” in putting out a statement taking blame for the picture, he said. “If I had it to do over I would step back and take a deep breath.” He said that an “independent investigation” being conducted by Eastern Virginia Medical School is aimed at clearing up the facts around it.
Looking ahead, Northam said he has asked his Cabinet secretaries to come up with proposals to begin addressing issues of inequality, such as expanding access to healthcare, housing and transportation, and to begin reporting suggestions Monday.
“It’s obvious from what happened this week that we still have a lot of work to do. There are still some very deep wounds in Virginia, and especially in the area of equity,” he said. “There are ongoing inequities to access to things like education, healthcare, mortgages, capital, entrepreneurship. And so this has been a real, I think, an awakening for Virginia. It has really raised the level of awareness for racial issues in Virginia. And so we’re ready to learn from our mistakes.”
Northam has been in seclusion all week, using tunnels to shuttle between the mansion and the nearby building where he has an office. He has met with African American legislators and faith and community leaders, and has begun reading up on race — “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a few chapters of “Roots” by Alex Haley. He said he has reflected on his own origins and tried to confront his lack of understanding.
Northam said he has had painful conversations this week with black lawmakers — who continue to call publicly for him to resign — about the issue of blackface, and why it was wrong for him to darken his face to portray Michael Jackson in a San Antonio dance contest in 1984.
“The things that I did back in medical school, and in San Antonio, were insensitive, and I have learned since that they were very offensive. We learn from our mistakes, and I’m a stronger person,” he said.
Asked what Northam meant by saying “medical school and San Antonio,” spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel said he misspoke — that he meant in medical school in San Antonio, where he did his residency.
Northam said he had been especially affected by a conversation with a black lawmaker, whom he declined to name, on the topic of blackface. He said he learned about the history of minstrel shows, where white people mocked black people “and exaggerated their characteristics and mannerisms.”
“And the main point that this person told me is that at the end of the day, the white person — just as I was the white person that dressed up as an African American dancer — at the end of the day, we can take that makeup off and go back to being white,” but a black person continues to live in that skin and all that it represents.
Another black lawmaker, whom he also declined to name, made a powerful point about white privilege, Northam said: that a white person who makes a mistake gets a second chance, while a black person might not. “That really helped put things in perspective for me to better understand why someone of white privilege has the opportunities that they have when an African American ... doesn’t,” he said.
Northam said the humbling week and the late-inlife conversations about race have made him determined to refocus his governorship, but it seemed plain that he is just beginning to think through what that might mean.
Cautious and low-key, Northam expressed no desire for radical action. Asked whether he felt liberated by the prospect of atoning, he quickly responded: “No question about that.”
But his first example of action was modest.
“First of all what I plan to do ... is to make sure that we have sensitivity training — in our Cabinet, in our agencies. I also plan to reach out to our colleges and universities and talk about sensitivity training. Even into the Kthrough-12 age range, that’s very important.”
On Friday, he said, he tasked his Cabinet with thinking “over the weekend how we could change and make new policy, how we could reshape Virginia through their Cabinet positions.”
For example, he said, Virginia has a serious issue with infant and maternal mortality — “we’ve talked about it; now it’s time to take action.”
Expanding Medicaid last year was a good start, he said, but state government needs to be aggressive about enrolling residents.
Northam said he has talked with Commerce Secretary Brian Ball about boosting affordable housing, fostering entrepreneurship among minorities and taking a look at whether minority-owned businesses are getting full access to state contracts.
He wants more resources for public transit to expand access to transportation, he said.
Immediately following the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Northam suggested that Confederate monuments be moved from public property to museums. But later, he said the matter should be left to each locality.
On Saturday, he seemed to say he was willing to use his authority as governor to push the issue, if the monuments remain provocative.
“I will take a harder line,” Northam said. “If there are statues, if there are monuments out there that provoke this type of hatred and bigotry, they need to be in museums.”
Northam pointed out that part of better understanding history is to have more context, more monuments of a broader swath of historical figures. He pointed to portraits in the executive mansion — civil rights lawyer Oliver Hill, for instance, and Barbara Johns, who fought to integrate public schools.
But earlier in the interview, Northam had also pointed out a portrait in the parlor of Henry Wise, who served as governor in 1856-60 and is the only other Virginia governor besides Northam to hail from the Eastern Shore. When it was pointed out that Wise was a staunch Confederate who defended slavery, Northam grimaced.
Should that portrait come down? “Well, I think that’s an important part of history, and we need to tell all history,” he said. “We have good history in Virginia ... and we have history that’s not good, and I don’t think we can shy away from any of it. We must tell it all. We must put it in perspective.”
Raised near the small fishing village of Onancock on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the son of a judge and a nurse, Northam said he is proud of his origins but that he is working to understand the missing pieces of his education about race.
Asked why it’s in the best interest of the state for him to work through these issues while in office, instead of heeding the calls to resign, Northam responded that he has a responsibility to the people who elected him.
He said he is setting up a “reconciliation tour” that would take him around the state to engage in conversations about race and healing, but he had no details yet.
“I really do believe there’s a calling for all of us, and the fact that this happened this year” — the 400th anniversary of Africans being brought to Virginia — “I think there’s a reason for that,” Northam said.