We're Going To Start A Dialogue...Again.

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Another week of racial controversies, another week of calls to "start a dialogue on race." What does that even mean? We talk to two veterans of one high-profile attempt at a national conversation on race, who have different views of its effectiveness.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Code Switch, I'm Shireen Madisol Miraji.
0:05.3	And I'm Gene Demby.
0:06.7	My fellow Virginians, earlier today I released a statement apologizing for behavior in my past.
0:14.4	This episode starts with a yearbook photo.
0:17.5	So you already know where this is going?
0:19.5	A photo from the 1984 Med School Yearbook of Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia.
0:25.4	And on Northam's page, there's a picture of two men.
0:29.4	Worrying the full clue-clux plan get up and the other one wearing a wig and blackface.
0:36.6	At first, Northam apologized for the photos on his page in a brief statement.
0:41.9	I cannot change the decisions I made.
0:45.0	Nor can I undo the harm my behavior caused then and today.
0:50.0	But the next day he went full shaggy defense.
0:53.7	It wasn't me.
0:54.7	I'm telling the truth today that was not my picture.
0:57.2	And the photo here.
0:59.2	Uh-huh.
1:00.2	He did admit to wearing blackface another time as a young man when he dressed up in dance
1:05.7	like Michael Jackson for a party when a reporter asked Northam if he could still do the moonwalk.
1:10.5	His wife suggested to him that that press conference would probably not the appropriate time
1:14.5	when the bus out of moonwalk.
1:16.8	So far, no resignation for Governor Northam.
1:19.9	He's been meeting with black civil rights leaders.
	...

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