Black Men Will Vote for Harris—White Men Are the Problem
Why is the media talking so much about the fraction of Black men who might go MAGA when more than 60 percent of white men will vote for Trump?
by Elie Mystal
October 16, 2024
The Nation
PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris takes the stage during a campaign rally on October 13, 2024, in Greenville, North Carolina.(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a platform of policies to court Black male voters this week, which she called the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men.” The platform includes business loans for Black entrepreneurs, legalization of marijuana, and better regulation of the cryptocurrency market, which disproportionately predates on Black men.
I’ve read her plan, because reading such things is part of my job, but speaking as just a regular Black male voter, I honestly and deeply do not give a shit. We are three weeks out from a presidential election against a deranged fascist named Donald Trump. I do not need nor require a personalized agenda addressing my particular issues at this late date—and if I did need one this would not be it, not the least because it doesn’t contain any meaningful way to prevent the cops from harassing or murdering me and my Black children as we try to live out our lives in this racist country. The time for a Black male agenda was three years ago when Democrats briefly controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. Because I understand basic civics, I will continue to address my questions to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema about why such an agenda never materialized.
But I’m not here to talk about the past. I do not need more reliable crypto and an NFT in my lunchbox telling me I’m a big strong man in order to choose correctly between a moderate Black woman and the obvious white supremacist who believes in eugenics. I will be voting for Harris on November 5, and then spend the 1,500 days between that date and the next presidential election in 2028 advocating for my version of a Black agenda. Going on TikTok to advocate for Black people in October means nothing if you don’t show up with the same energy and ideas in January.
It might be tempting to write me off as a bougie negro who has lost touch with his community, but I’d like to point out that the overwhelming majority of Black male voters are going to do exactly what I do: vote for Harris. Harris will receive between 85 and 90 percent of the Black male vote. I acknowledge that the difference between 85 percent and 90 percent could be the difference in Harris winning or losing a critical state or two, but I simply refuse to engage in a conversation that paints Black male support as the “problem” for Harris in this election. Over 60 percent of white men are going to vote for a convicted felon. Somewhere around 50 percent of white women are going to vote for an adjudicated rapist and devout misogynist. Black men are not your problem, Democrats.
The “problem” in this country is how the majority of white people vote. The force holding this country back is the majority of white people. The people who have turned against democracy are the majority of white people. The global force destroying the environment of this earth is the majority of white people. If you are in the white liberal minority and you want to freak out about something, freak out about your cousins and grandmothers and colleagues who are about to cast a ballot for an unhinged authoritarian. Go deal with the white people in your life instead of placing the burden on Black folks to save this country from the majority of white folks yet again.
Of course, asking white folks to look in the mirror and address their own bullshit has been the plea of every Black thinker and intellectual from Frederick Douglass to Chris Rock. This country has become comfortable with the idea that white support for white supremacy is inevitable. The white voters who will support this fascism are consistently treated by the media as if they are merely doing the very best they can given the economic and social forces they believe exist, even though most of what these white voters believe is factually, demonstrably wrong.
This fallacious idea that white people are always doing their best—and that it’s up to everyone else to stop them if they disagree—is such a common feature of American political discourse that you’ll still see a majority of white folks defend the enslavers and rapists who wrote the Constitution. They’ll call these founders “men of their times,” even though there were other, better men (and women!) who knew in real time that slavery was wrong and that women should have political equality. The enslaved people, for instance, were “men of their times” and knew slavery was wrong. But most whites, even the “progressive” ones at the time, went along with the unforgivable evil of human bondage. The only time progressive white folks actually stood up to their racist brothers and cousins was in the 1860s, and the racist whites were so pissed about the normal operation of democratic governance that elected Abraham Lincoln that they seceded from the Union and started a civil war. Usually, instead of dealing with retrograde white folks, liberal whites look for somebody else to blame.
In this election, the powers that be have decided that Black men are the appropriate scapegoat. Yes, the overwhelming majority of Black male voters will vote for Harris, but what about those who don’t vote? What about the dudes who will stay on the couch? Surely, if every Black man would just crawl over broken glass to vote for Harris, our democracy could be saved. Since not every single sentient brother will perform their assigned civic duty of saving white folks like the magic negroes we are supposed to be, clearly Harris must have a problem with Black men—or so the story goes.
Harris does not have a “problem” with Black men. That said, she does appear, based on the polls, to be slightly underperforming Joe Biden in 2020 with… men. All men. White men, Black men, Latino men, AAPI men, men without a college degree, men with a college degree, working men, businessmen, and pretty much every other flavor of men—except perhaps Black queer men, who appear to be all in for the VP.
Gosh, I can’t imagine why. Is the fact that America is the only major democracy to never have elected a woman as its leader something more than mere coincidence? Could it be that too many cis-hetero American men are pathetic little rump creatures who have been taught by their fathers and movies to view women as prizes to be won instead of equals to be respected? I guess there are some things we’ll never know for sure.
To the extent Harris has a problem with men, there’s literally nothing she can do about it. Harris could give Lady MacBeth’s “unsex me here” soliloquy as a stump speech while wearing a fake beard like the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut, and it wouldn’t make a damn’s bit of difference to the misogyny crowd. She’s running against a man who literally tells other men that it’s OK to grab women by the genitals. The guys who want that to be true are never going to vote for a woman. There’s not an agenda available that will persuade those kinds of men to not suck. To put that in a language those guys can understand: You can’t reason with these men—you just have to kick their ass.
The same goes for her alleged problem with Black men. There’s nothing she alone can do about it. A policy agenda that focuses on the specific hurdles that this country has erected before Black men cannot be addressed by fiat by the president of the United States. It takes legislation, passed by Congress. It takes courts willing to uphold the Voting Rights Act and enforce the equal protection of laws promised by the Constitution. It takes governors, state legislatures, and mayors willing to hold racist police forces accountable for their crimes and harassment. It takes politicians committed to advancing the issues important to Black men not for a few weeks every four years, but every day, relentlessly.
We do need a Black male “opportunity agenda,” not as a campaign sound bite, but as an ongoing commitment to give as much of a crap about Black men on November 6 as people will pretend to through November 4. More than any specific policy, I believe that with Kamala Harris, we have at least the possibility of that commitment, and that is my top ask in an election.
At the very least, I’m positive that Harris’s commitment to advancing the opportunities for Black men extends beyond Trump’s commitment to having Black men who are already successful shuck and jive for him at his rallies. The Democrats are far from perfect, but Trump and his Republicans are an anathema that offer tokenism instead of progress. As Dr. Christina Greer expertly explained in a recent piece, Black men are fantastic at voting for harm reduction. We know that the Democratic Party isn’t going to really focus on us, but we also know that the Republican Party is going to focus on us—on hurting us, hunting us, crushing us and, given the slightest provocation and opportunity, shooting us.
Black men are not magic, but we are protectors. Just like generations of Black women, we will put our bodies on the line to defend our families, our communities, and our humanity. Most of us will, at least—and around 85 to 90 percent of us will prove it again in the upcoming election. I hope that is enough to counteract the influence of all the men who are not like us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a platform of policies to court Black male voters this week, which she called the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men.” The platform includes business loans for Black entrepreneurs, legalization of marijuana, and better regulation of the cryptocurrency market, which disproportionately predates on Black men.
I’ve read her plan, because reading such things is part of my job, but speaking as just a regular Black male voter, I honestly and deeply do not give a shit. We are three weeks out from a presidential election against a deranged fascist named Donald Trump. I do not need nor require a personalized agenda addressing my particular issues at this late date—and if I did need one this would not be it, not the least because it doesn’t contain any meaningful way to prevent the cops from harassing or murdering me and my Black children as we try to live out our lives in this racist country. The time for a Black male agenda was three years ago when Democrats briefly controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. Because I understand basic civics, I will continue to address my questions to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema about why such an agenda never materialized.
But I’m not here to talk about the past. I do not need more reliable crypto and an NFT in my lunchbox telling me I’m a big strong man in order to choose correctly between a moderate Black woman and the obvious white supremacist who believes in eugenics. I will be voting for Harris on November 5, and then spend the 1,500 days between that date and the next presidential election in 2028 advocating for my version of a Black agenda. Going on TikTok to advocate for Black people in October means nothing if you don’t show up with the same energy and ideas in January.
It might be tempting to write me off as a bougie negro who has lost touch with his community, but I’d like to point out that the overwhelming majority of Black male voters are going to do exactly what I do: vote for Harris. Harris will receive between 85 and 90 percent of the Black male vote. I acknowledge that the difference between 85 percent and 90 percent could be the difference in Harris winning or losing a critical state or two, but I simply refuse to engage in a conversation that paints Black male support as the “problem” for Harris in this election. Over 60 percent of white men are going to vote for a convicted felon. Somewhere around 50 percent of white women are going to vote for an adjudicated rapist and devout misogynist. Black men are not your problem, Democrats.
The “problem” in this country is how the majority of white people vote. The force holding this country back is the majority of white people. The people who have turned against democracy are the majority of white people. The global force destroying the environment of this earth is the majority of white people. If you are in the white liberal minority and you want to freak out about something, freak out about your cousins and grandmothers and colleagues who are about to cast a ballot for an unhinged authoritarian. Go deal with the white people in your life instead of placing the burden on Black folks to save this country from the majority of white folks yet again.
Of course, asking white folks to look in the mirror and address their own bullshit has been the plea of every Black thinker and intellectual from Frederick Douglass to Chris Rock. This country has become comfortable with the idea that white support for white supremacy is inevitable. The white voters who will support this fascism are consistently treated by the media as if they are merely doing the very best they can given the economic and social forces they believe exist, even though most of what these white voters believe is factually, demonstrably wrong.
This fallacious idea that white people are always doing their best—and that it’s up to everyone else to stop them if they disagree—is such a common feature of American political discourse that you’ll still see a majority of white folks defend the enslavers and rapists who wrote the Constitution. They’ll call these founders “men of their times,” even though there were other, better men (and women!) who knew in real time that slavery was wrong and that women should have political equality. The enslaved people, for instance, were “men of their times” and knew slavery was wrong. But most whites, even the “progressive” ones at the time, went along with the unforgivable evil of human bondage. The only time progressive white folks actually stood up to their racist brothers and cousins was in the 1860s, and the racist whites were so pissed about the normal operation of democratic governance that elected Abraham Lincoln that they seceded from the Union and started a civil war. Usually, instead of dealing with retrograde white folks, liberal whites look for somebody else to blame.
In this election, the powers that be have decided that Black men are the appropriate scapegoat. Yes, the overwhelming majority of Black male voters will vote for Harris, but what about those who don’t vote? What about the dudes who will stay on the couch? Surely, if every Black man would just crawl over broken glass to vote for Harris, our democracy could be saved. Since not every single sentient brother will perform their assigned civic duty of saving white folks like the magic negroes we are supposed to be, clearly Harris must have a problem with Black men—or so the story goes.
Harris does not have a “problem” with Black men. That said, she does appear, based on the polls, to be slightly underperforming Joe Biden in 2020 with… men. All men. White men, Black men, Latino men, AAPI men, men without a college degree, men with a college degree, working men, businessmen, and pretty much every other flavor of men—except perhaps Black queer men, who appear to be all in for the VP.
Gosh, I can’t imagine why. Is the fact that America is the only major democracy to never have elected a woman as its leader something more than mere coincidence? Could it be that too many cis-hetero American men are pathetic little rump creatures who have been taught by their fathers and movies to view women as prizes to be won instead of equals to be respected? I guess there are some things we’ll never know for sure.
To the extent Harris has a problem with men, there’s literally nothing she can do about it. Harris could give Lady MacBeth’s “unsex me here” soliloquy as a stump speech while wearing a fake beard like the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut, and it wouldn’t make a damn’s bit of difference to the misogyny crowd. She’s running against a man who literally tells other men that it’s OK to grab women by the genitals. The guys who want that to be true are never going to vote for a woman. There’s not an agenda available that will persuade those kinds of men to not suck. To put that in a language those guys can understand: You can’t reason with these men—you just have to kick their ass.
The same goes for her alleged problem with Black men. There’s nothing she alone can do about it. A policy agenda that focuses on the specific hurdles that this country has erected before Black men cannot be addressed by fiat by the president of the United States. It takes legislation, passed by Congress. It takes courts willing to uphold the Voting Rights Act and enforce the equal protection of laws promised by the Constitution. It takes governors, state legislatures, and mayors willing to hold racist police forces accountable for their crimes and harassment. It takes politicians committed to advancing the issues important to Black men not for a few weeks every four years, but every day, relentlessly.
We do need a Black male “opportunity agenda,” not as a campaign sound bite, but as an ongoing commitment to give as much of a crap about Black men on November 6 as people will pretend to through November 4. More than any specific policy, I believe that with Kamala Harris, we have at least the possibility of that commitment, and that is my top ask in an election.
At the very least, I’m positive that Harris’s commitment to advancing the opportunities for Black men extends beyond Trump’s commitment to having Black men who are already successful shuck and jive for him at his rallies. The Democrats are far from perfect, but Trump and his Republicans are an anathema that offer tokenism instead of progress. As Dr. Christina Greer expertly explained in a recent piece, Black men are fantastic at voting for harm reduction. We know that the Democratic Party isn’t going to really focus on us, but we also know that the Republican Party is going to focus on us—on hurting us, hunting us, crushing us and, given the slightest provocation and opportunity, shooting us.
Black men are not magic, but we are protectors. Just like generations of Black women, we will put our bodies on the line to defend our families, our communities, and our humanity. Most of us will, at least—and around 85 to 90 percent of us will prove it again in the upcoming election. I hope that is enough to counteract the influence of all the men who are not like us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Elie Mystal is The Nation’s justice correspondent and the host of its legal podcast, Contempt of Court. He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. His first book is the New York Times bestseller Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, published by The New Press. Elie can be followed @ElieNYC.
