Black men today face a unique reality that warrants consideration: Under nearly any relevant index for measuring the quality of American life — how far we get in schoolbetinm, our finances when compared with those of our white counterparts, and how long we will live — Black men consistently rank last or near last. There is not a Black man alive in this country right now who has ever seen Black male unemployment equal to or less than that of his white counterparts.
This is true even more acutely for a 34-year-old Black man born in 1990 who may have voted in every presidential election since his 18th birthday, saw the election of a Black president and spent more of his adult life with Democrats in the Oval Office than Republicans.
How could we not be asking ourselves: Come November, which candidate can help us change course?
History might suggest that Kamala Harris’s campaign for commander in chief would be met with near unflinching support from much of the Democratic faithful — women, Black, Latino and college-educated voters. Pew Center data estimates that from 1994 through 2019, both Black and Latino registered voters have consistently identified as Democrats at rates higher than white voters. Yet in a moment where political allegiances of the past would seem to carry the day, Democrats are increasingly challenged in maintaining their stronghold among Black male voters.
Black men’s reconsideration of the Democratic Party is the worst kept secret of the progressive left. Black voters who aren’t Democrats still may be a small minority, but with the speed and reach of the internet these voices are increasingly amplified at levels exceeding what many ever thought was possible. Regardless of the outcome of the November election, Democrats cannot afford to dismiss this as tomorrow’s problem. The margin for victory will be tight on either side, and even in a world where Ms. Harris is victorious, this issue is not going away or shrinking in its significance.
In many respects, Democrats have themselves to blame for this disturbing trend by not controlling what has been in their power to control. While Republicans seemed to ignore the Black vote entirely, Democrats failed to prioritize policies that would have spoken directly to Black voters.
For example, there is no reason that the expiring portions of the Voting Rights Act should have been left to the Supreme Court to begin gutting with Shelby County v. Holder when Democratic legislators had decades to codify many of its tenets. Likewise, a commitment to police reform would have meant that once the George Floyd police reform act died in Senate committee because of Republican stonewalling, Democrats should have remained dogged in their pursuit of these much-needed changes to police conduct.
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