Why You Shouldn’t Buy the Election Narrative About Black Men
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2024
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Earlier this month, former President Barack Obama stopped by a Kamala Harris campaign office in Pennsylvania and made headlines by admonishing Black men for being less enthusiastic about supporting her for president compared with the support he received when he ran in 2008.
“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,” Obama said.
Within days of Obama’s comments, Harris unveiled an “opportunity agenda for Black men” in part to energize and engage this slice of the electorate. According to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 70 percent of likely Black male voters said they supported Harris, compared with more than 80 percent of Black men who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.
So should we believe the polls? Reveal host Al Letson and Mother Jones video correspondent Garrison Hayes are skeptical. In this podcast extra, Letson and Hayes discuss whether Democrats should be concerned about Black men defecting from the party, former President Donald Trump’s own plans to win them over, and why they think one of the most Democratic-leaning demographics in the US will likely stay that way.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Center for Investigative Reporting, this is an election bonus episode of Reveal. |
| 0:11.4 | I'm Al Let's |
| 0:17.0 | So one in five black men are saying that they are supporting Donald Trump. Why do you think that? |
| 0:18.0 | You're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses. I'm speaking to men directly. |
| 0:22.0 | Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president. |
| 0:30.0 | Wrong approach, wrong tone, wrong message. This is the real party has to stop scapegoating |
| 0:35.9 | black men. Black men are not the problem and then in this election cycle the |
| 0:41.3 | spotlight has turned on black men and it's complicated to talk |
| 0:46.0 | about it I invited my colleague and good buddy the great Garrison Hayes |
| 0:50.0 | Garrison how you doing man I'm always doing well when I get to hang out with you and I, you know, I'm just hoping not to get into any trouble today. |
| 0:58.0 | Well, that's great John Lewis would say we can get to some good trouble, so let's do it. |
| 1:02.0 | So you just reported an episode of |
| 1:04.5 | reveal called red black and blue which is all about black Republicans I spent the |
| 1:09.6 | better part of the last year reporting on black political power, you know, even the title itself, |
| 1:14.0 | red black and blue, is all about putting black people at the center of our kind of |
| 1:18.4 | political discourse this election cycle. And I learned a lot throughout the process. I focused primarily on |
| 1:24.5 | conservatives, black conservatives because I thought that they might represent |
| 1:28.0 | some of the dynamism, which feels like perfect for this political moment. But I had a lot of conversations with a lot of folks all |
| 1:36.3 | across the the political spectrum in the black community. |
| 1:39.1 | Listeners if you haven't heard it go back and listen to his reporting. It's excellent. And today |
| 1:44.1 | we're going to hash out what's happening on the Democratic side. Now there's some |
| 1:48.5 | recent polls suggesting that fewer black men might support Harris than came out for President Joe Biden in 2020. |
... |
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