Should we try to understand Governor Northam or demand that he Al Franken himself?

Is the Democratic Party the party of no forgiveness? Does it need its own guy to kill himself because they want to be able to kill other people? Unquestionably, if a picture like this...



... had shown up from President Trump's old yearbook, Democrats would yell that he must resign. How can they retain their credibility to ruin Republicans if they don't destroy their own? I see Kamala Harris jumped right in to lead the pack. Harris is to Northam what Gillibrand was to Franken. Instant death. No pausing to reflect on human frailty. No empathy for the the imperfect judgment of young people. No contextualizing, even so soon after people misread what they saw in the photograph of the Covington Catholic boy and the Native American elder.

What was the context? Is asking for the context extending white privilege and contributing to the ravages of racism? I want to read Northham's own statement. Does that make me complicit in historical evil? The Democratic frontrunner for President, Kamala Harris, didn't sound interested in context, understanding, or empathy. She performed snap judgment. Northam must resign.

But let's read. Let's see what Northam gives us to think about.

Earlier today, a website published a photograph of me from my 1984 medical school yearbook in a costume that is clearly racist and offensive.

So we know that is him in the photograph... but which one is he? And why isn't he telling us?! Maybe if I could figure out which costume is worse, I'd know why he isn't telling. The KKK character is the evil one, but the other one is blackface, and everyone knows that a white person must never, ever put on blackface. I mean, Ted Danson didn't know in 1993 (and Whoopi Goldberg dared him to do it (he said)) but young Ralph Northam was supposed to know in 1983.

What was the occasion? A costume party of some sort? Is there anything to be said about the apparent camaraderie between the Klansman and the black man? Some vision of the peaceable kingdom: "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together..."



But a white man put on blackface and another white man put on a KKK outfit and that's all the there is: Northam's statement, adding nothing but a confession that he was inside one of those costumes, implicitly says, there is no context to consider. To contextualize would be to minimize guilt, when he wants to take on full guilt... except for the little detail of costume was his. (Is he waiting to hear which costume is worse? Which one does he want to be, given that he has to be one?)

The statement continues:

I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo...

You mean as a Klansman or as a black man? I'd like to know, even as I'm unsure which is worse.

... and for the hurt that decision caused then and now. This behavior is not in keeping with who I am today...

But who were you then? What did the costume mean? Were you actually a racist at the time? I'd like to know what he remembers thinking and what other people said. Maybe he isn't talking about it because there was some garish racial foolery or even bigotry, but I suspect he's keeping it short because he's been advised that any attempt to explain will be taken as a failure to take racism seriously. You'll be making it worse.

... and the values I have fought for throughout my career in the military, in medicine, and in public service. But I want to be clear, I understand how this decision shakes Virginians’ faith in that commitment. I recognize that it will take time and serious effort to heal the damage this conduct has caused. I am ready to do that important work. The first step is to offer my sincerest apology and to state my absolute commitment to living up to the expectations Virginians set for me when they elected me to be their Governor.

The elements of an apology are thus firmly in place. Must he also resign? This isn't the Senate. He can't be expelled by a bunch of Senators like Al Franken. But Al Franken ousted himself when the Senators banded together against him. Will Northam take himself out? If he does, what will it mean?

Let's look to Kamala Harris as a source of meaning. Her tweet:

Leaders are called to a higher standard, and the stain of racism should have no place in the halls of government. The Governor of Virginia should step aside so the public can heal and move forward together.

Northam did something 30 years ago. How is his presence in the "halls of government" the presence of the "stain of racism"? This is grandiose and severe language. And yet it purports to give priority to healing and moving forward. If we really cared about healing and moving forward, wouldn't we believe that a man may have moved forward over the course of 30 years and not insist that he is stained forever?

If we are stained forever by what is in the past, then there is no healing, no moving forward — ever, no matter what. So how could Northam's resignation help us do what cannot be done? And, most absurdly, how are we moving forward "together" if the main thing that must be done is to leave one of us behind? There is no "together," no "healing," no "moving forward," just relentless stain, rejection, and punishment.

I'm concentrating on Kamala Harris, because she seems to be the Democratic Party frontrunner for President and because her call for Northam's resignation is the first one I've heard, but others have followed the same path of no forgiveness. The candidates for President look desperate not to be left behind. They see which way things seem to be going and they rush to get there too. Julian Castro, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Sherrod Brown,  John Hickenlooper,  Eric Swalwell (who?), Terry McAuliffe. I see why they have to do it, to preserve the Democratic Party brand, and yet I think it's an awful brand — relentless, unforgiving, without context, without careful consideration.

And (most ironically) it makes it harder to say that racism is pervasive and runs throughout humanity. We're stuck in a shallow ritual of identifying scapegoats and imagining that we could emerge from that ritual stainless and whole.