By Matt Brown | Related Press
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama had frank phrases for Black males who could also be contemplating sitting out the election.
“Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” he mentioned Thursday to Harris-Walz marketing campaign volunteers and officers at a discipline workplace in Pittsburgh.
America’s first Black president touched a nerve amongst Democrats nervous about Vice President Kamala Harris’ probabilities of changing into the second.
Harris is relying on Black turnout in battleground states corresponding to Pennsylvania in her tight race with Republican Donald Trump, who has centered on energizing males of all races and tried to make inroads with Black males particularly.
Obama’s feedback belie that Black males nonetheless overwhelmingly again Harris. However her marketing campaign and allies have labored exhausting attempting to shore up assist with this essential group of voters — and addressing questions on potential misogyny.
Black People are essentially the most Democratic-leaning racial demographic within the nation, with Black males being outpaced solely by Black girls of their assist for Democrats.
A latest ballot performed by The Related Press-NORC Middle for Public Affairs Analysis discovered that about 7 in 10 Black voters had a positive view of Harris and most well-liked her management to that of Trump on a number of main coverage points together with the financial system, well being care, abortion, immigration and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
There was little distinction in assist for Harris between Black males and Black girls.
However Khalil Thompson, co-founder and government director of Win With Black Males, mentioned he agreed with what he noticed as Obama’s bigger level.
“I believe President Obama is speaking to a tangible, visceral understanding of what it means for all men to relate to women in America. Calling out misogyny is not wrong,” mentioned Thompson, whose group raised greater than $1.3 million for Harris from 20,000 Black males within the 24 hours after President Joe Biden bowed out of the race in July and made means for Harris.
Win With Black Males has organized weekly calls and occasions meant to bolster Harris’ standing with Black males.
The flurry of activism has centered on combating misinformation in Black communities about Harris, in addition to an emphasis on the coverage priorities of Black males, which the group discovered are sometimes centered on larger financial alternatives, protected communities, social justice insurance policies and well being care, notably for the companions and kids of Black males.
“We’re not a monolith,” Thompson mentioned. “However, we are just like every other American in this country who wants a good paying job, that we can provide for our children and participate in their lives and the lives of our partner, that we can get them home safely, afford to go to the grocery store, save a little for retirement and have a vacation.”
Harris mentioned she believes the votes of Black males have to be earned, like with any group of voters.
Black males “are not in our back pocket,” she informed a panel hosted by the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists in September.
Harris just lately sat down with the “All The Smoke” podcast hosted by former NBA gamers Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson to debate her racial id and coverage problems with curiosity to Black males. On Tuesday, Harris will seem in Detroit for a dwell dialog with Charlamagne tha God, a outstanding Black media character.
The Harris marketing campaign is conducting numerous outreach efforts to Black voters, together with an tour of homecomings at traditionally Black schools and universities, numerous radio and TV advertisements concentrating on Black voters in key states, and a get-out-the-vote operation participating Black communities that enhances the work of allied teams corresponding to Win With Black Males.
It has additionally tapped high-profile surrogates, together with politicians, enterprise leaders, skilled athletes and musical artists, to courtroom Black males.
“Our Black men, we’ve got to get them out to vote,” mentioned former NBA star Magic Johnson throughout a latest Harris rally in Flint, Michigan. “Kamala’s opponent promised a lot of things to the Black community that he did not deliver on. And we’ve got to make sure we help Black men understand that.”
The Trump marketing campaign and its allies have held roundtables for Black males and performed a bus tour via swing states that featured cookouts in cities like Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia. The marketing campaign believes the previous president’s appeals on points such because the financial system, immigration and conventional gender roles resonate with some Black males.
Trump earlier this yr mused that the legal fees in opposition to him in 4 separate indictments, one in all which led to a conviction with one other dismissed, made him extra relatable to Black individuals.
“A lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” he informed a Black conservative viewers in South Carolina.
Trump’s assist amongst Black, white, and Hispanic male voters worries senior Harris marketing campaign officers because the election more and more shapes up as divided alongside gender traces, with Harris stronger with girls and Trump stronger with males.
However the debate over to what diploma misogyny performs a job in some Black males not supporting Harris sidesteps a broader dialog on how Black males are engaged as full residents in politics, argues Philip Agnew, founding father of the grassroots political group Black Males Construct.
“To be a Black man in the United States is to be invisible and hypervisible at the same time, and neither one of those is a humanizing viewpoint,” Agnew mentioned.
Agnew’s group traveled to 10 cities throughout the summer time, internet hosting roundtables with Black males and making the case for civic engagement and a progressive politics. Agnew mentioned many Black males all through these conversations expressed exasperation towards politics, a sentiment shared by many People, along with a sense that their political views have been usually misunderstood or unappreciated.
“The Black men I know are incredibly concerned with the lives of our families and our communities,” Agnew mentioned. “It’s because of an abundance of love for our sisters that we ask questions, not a lack of love.”
