Political elections may be the only counting metric that tells us a majority is not a majority. We go through this on a macro basis almost every four years, where the majority of votes are not the determining factor in a presidential election but an archaic electoral college process rooted in slavery. The press is obsessed with the polls that show Black men and Latino men are underperforming when it comes to support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid. Scenarios are told to us daily by the cable news chatter class that a Harris loss will be on the backs of Black men and Latino men. When last I checked, the male Latino vote was about 54 % for Harris—as opposed to 60 % for Latina women. The Black male vote was about 70 % in September and as high as 80 % in polls that showed little difference between Black men and women.
Only in American politics would a national election with those kinds of margins be considered iffy. I am not naïve; I understand that small percentages decide races in an electoral college process, but that is a flaw in the system, not the electorate. My problem lies in the fact that Kamala Harris will win Black and Latin votes by an overwhelming majority, but if people of color do not vote as a monolith, the press will characterize her victory as narrow and a loss as a failure to engage men of color. Yesterday, former President Obama gave what I deemed a reasoned talk to a group of black male voters that has been labeled as “lecturing.” Unfortunately, black political operatives like former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, who supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, have highlighted the critique.
Turner reacted, saying, as reported by Mediaite:
“Now, a lot of love for former President Obama, but for him to single out Black men is wrong, and some of the Black men that I have talked to have their reasons why they want to vote a different way, and even if some of us may not like that, we have to respect it. So, unless President Barack Obama is gonna go out and lecture every other group of men from other identity groups, my message for Democrats is don’t bring it here to Black men who by and large don’t vote much differently from Black women. As a politician, we should be trying to get all voters to vote, and hopefully there are a few good men out there who do care about the stripping away of some of women’s bodily autonomy.”
Ms. Turner accused Mr. Obama seven years ago of being a “symbol” and not changing the lives of Black Americans. Starting her critique with the same disarming tones she attempted yesterday, saying, “President Obama, don’t get me wrong, is a good man…” She concluded by saying, “Stop voting for a political party just because it’s Democrat (sic). Vote for people because they hold your interest and because they are gonna do something to help you and your family.” Mr. Obama implored a collective group of men and women on a campaign stop for Harris in Pennsylvania yesterday, “You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you because you think that’s a sign of strength because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable,” Obama said.
Although Ms. Turner was up in arms about former President Obama not addressing issues concerning the Black community to her satisfaction—during his two terms in office, she seems perfectly fine if he sat back and did not address Black men and allowed a racist to occupy the Oval Office without comment. Black women have been touted as the backbone of the Democratic coalition. If so, and if black men want to be the head, they claim, they need to heed some borrowed words paraphrased by Mr. Obama, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
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