Former President Barack Obama speaks during a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz in the Fitzgerald Field House at the University of Pittsburgh on Thursday, October 10, 2024. | Source: Tom Williams / Getty
The views expressed in op-eds are the authors’ and not the view of NewsOne.
According to a new report from CNN, former President Barack Obama, who rose to political prominence by way of a 2004 DNC speech touting that “there is no red or blue America but one United States of America,” now “no longer thinks he can get to the people locked in with Trump.”
So, as he ramps up his stumping for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign ahead of the election next month, “He’s just hoping to help find enough votes in enough states to counter them.”
That undoubtedly includes Black male voters, a group that in polling for more than a year now has shown to be still largely supportive of the Democratic nominee while showing a small but noticeable shift toward former President Donald Trump among younger Black men.
In September, the NAACP released a poll that found that 26% of Black men under 50 years old said they would support Trump.
If Obama is to be successful in his pursuit to shift this trend back favorably to Democrats, I have some unsolicited advice: Measure your approach.
Last week, while stopping by a Harris office in Pittsburgh, Obama called out Black men he feels are not supportive of Kamala Harris due to their misogyny.
He said: “Part of it makes me think— and I’m speaking to men directly … 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.”
Then, in a direct appeal to Black men, added: “Now, 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.”
“I’m going to go ahead and just say, speak some truths if you don’t mind,” Obama continued, “because my understanding, based on reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities, is that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running.”
When one man in the audience responded “I’m not,” Obama quipped, “You know, Cousin Pookie might be.”
“Our challenge is to speak to people on the sidelines,” Obama noted.
I’m of two minds about Obama’s appeal to Black men.
On one end, there is a misogyny problem permeating the electorate and some Black men are very much part of the problem.
The only other time we had a female presidential candidate, T.I. and Pharrell both publicly questioned a woman’s ability to be president.
Nowadays, men like Lord Jamar, regurgitate racist right-wing smears about Kamala Harris not being “really Black” and have declared that they can’t be “bullied” into supporting the Harris-Walz ticket.
Joining him in idiocy are plenty of Black men online as evidenced by the comments section under several Kamala-related posts on any corner of social media. The same goes for those arguing online about her with Roland Martin, among others.
I can personally attest to men at the barbershop having sexist commentary that sometimes makes me yearn for the disposal income to pay for regular home visits instead.
Misogyny is a real issue in this election and we should be glad that we’re finally talking about it.
On the other hand, when it comes to why Black men collectively may have misgivings about any Democratic presidential candidate — even if it is Kamala Harris — they deserve more credit than Obama is giving them.
I’m not usually the type to quote Bill Kristol, who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations before going on to launch conservative outlets like The Weekly Standard and The Bulwark, but in a newsletter for the latter, he rightly points out which demo deserves the biggest blame for the misogyny problem the Harris campaign faces.
“There will be more defections among young black men than among older black voters or black women, but Harris still wins young black men by better than two-to-one,” Kristol writes.
“The more important point is this: If you believe it’s important to defeat Trump, it’s not Obama’s ‘brothers’ who are the problem. It’s my ‘brothers’ who are the problem: white voters.”
If a white conservative man in his early 70s can understand this, so should Obama.
The sexism issue is real but only a small fraction of Black men are the problem. Yet, if Harris were to lose the election, they would be assigned the majority of the blame.
Black men should not be made the scapegoat of any unfavorable electoral outcome next month – especially given the reasons why some Black men have soured on Democrats remain unaddressed.
Moreover, Obama appears to have forgotten that he, too, faced skepticism among Black men like Jesse Jackson and Bobby Rush. Or how that skepticism amplified after the handling of his ex-preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright after one of his sermons was spun into a political campaign issue. Or how he caught flack for the tone he took with Black men while delivering a Morehouse commencement address in 2013. Or that during the Obama administration, Black women protested him too down in Ferguson and across the country during the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement.
We can all like Obama and his family personally, but to pretend that Kamala Harris is only getting the side eye from some Black men due to sexism ignores the reality that Obama received similar glares as a candidate and as a president.
Also, I have repeatedly taken issue with his use of “Pookie” over the years. With all due respect, I don’t expect a man from Hawaii raised by white folks to know that many “Pookies” to have used that name for three decades and counting. It sounds haughty no matter his historical significance.
Some Black people are applauding Obama’s remarks, sharing the mindset that some members of our community – the “Cousin Pookie” wing if you will – need these types of talks from Obama.
I think these well-to-do wealthy Black folks and/or those struggling with internalized racism, need to question why they feel so strongly that way.
Obama is right to condemn sexism, but if the goal is to reach Black men and convince them to support Harris, it would behoove Obama to be less condescending.
Whether he or his supporters like it or not, many Black men justifiably feel failed by the system no matter the color of the face of who represents power in the moment.
And although the Harris campaign did release new policy proposals on Monday, I agree with the critique that it read as We need a list of proposals that might appeal to Black men but will not annoy a single white swing voter.
Indeed because Black men don’t need more mentorship programs but more jobs that pay livable wages, a justice system that’s actually just, better access to healthcare, and everything else that will lift us from the bottom of life expectancy in this country.
So, if Obama and Harris want to reach Black men, give them the same treatment white women voters get during a presidential election cycle as opposed to more paternalistic lecturing from the first Black president of a bygone era.
Michael Arceneaux is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book, “I Finally Bought Some Jordans,” was published in March.
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