Roland Martin to Biden aide: Biden/Harris/Dems MUST EXCLUSIVELY speak to BLACK MEN DIRECTLY! - ASAP!

[saturn7]

 

[saturn7]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Why Biden Needs Black Men
Biden’s Battle for Black Men
The Biden campaign is making its final pitch to energize an important constituency.

5:00 AM ET

Elaine Cromie / Getty
American-flag bunting frames Headliners Barbershop in Detroit. Out front, four barber’s chairs, spaced six feet apart, form a straight line. In one of them, Garlin Gilchrist, the lieutenant governor of Michigan, sits up, then leans on the right armrest, turning to Senator Kamala Harris, who occupies the seat next to him. “All of us know somebody who has been affected or who has died,” he tells the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. “That’s happened to me 23 times since this pandemic hit. Twenty-three goodbyes.” Harris nods along.

Through his black mask, Gilchrist tells the smattering of Black men from the area who have joined the “Shop Talk” event, the Biden campaign’s series of conversations focused on Black voters, that all of this was preventable. Since the pandemic began, more than 7,000 Michiganders have lost their lives to the coronavirus. “Not a single one of them had to die. Their death was a policy failure—a policy failure that started with a failure in the White House,” he says.

Although Black women have often been called “the backbone of the Democratic Party,” Black men have not been reliably Democratic in such large numbers. During the 2016 election, 98 percent of Black women who voted cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton, whereas 81 percent of Black men did. Fourteen percent of Black men voted for Donald Trump. The Biden campaign knew, going into the race, that it would need to maintain that support Clinton received. But merely matching Clinton’s numbers would not be enough—it needed to build upon them. The campaign recognized that its success or failure in energizing Black men could dictate whether America had four more years of the Trump administration. As millions of voters have begun mailing in their ballots and voting in person, the Biden campaign is racing to make its final pitches to the electorate, including Black men. It has held virtual conversations with prominent Black mayors, dispatched Magic Johnson to Detroit, and blanketed television and radio with ads designed to reach Black men and avoid a repeat of 2016.


Four years ago, at a rally an hour and a half northwest of Detroit, Donald Trump asked what came to be an infamous question. “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth are unemployed,” he said, referring to Black voters. “What the hell do you have to lose?” He boasted to the audience in Dimondale, a city that is 93 percent white, that after four years, he would win 95 percent of the Black vote in the country. But four years later, one of every 1,000 Black Americans has died during a pandemic that has disproportionately affected them, and the Black unemployment rate is more than 50 percent higher than it was at the end of the Obama administration. Still, the Biden campaign is not resting on that fact alone to get Black men to turn out in three weeks.

A lot of Black men “were Trump-curious in 2016, and they thought that he was some great businessman and prosperity would rain down from his administration,” Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, one of the Biden-campaign co-chairs, told me recently. But although Black voters helped catapult the Biden campaign in the Democratic primary, several polls among Black men have remained consistent with the last election. In one September survey of likely voters, Black women, again, overwhelmingly support the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, but roughly 17 percent of Black men say they plan to support the president. Still, Richmond told me, the campaign believes it can outperform those expectations by “talking straight to Black men about the things they’re concerned about.”


The campaign’s strategy is similar to the one it employed during the Democratic primary, Trey Baker, the Biden campaign’s national director for African American engagement, told me. “The primary is like a series of local elections,” he said. “It’s like you’re running for mayor in every town across the country.” The relationships with local activists, barbers, pastors, and other leaders are where those elections are won. Biden’s team has carried the relationships it built during such retail campaigning in the primary to its largely virtual homestretch. The boost Biden received from Black voters in South Carolina rescued his primary campaign, and their support across the rest of the South sustained it. The campaign hopes they will buoy him in November, as well. But the Biden campaign struggled with young Black voters during the primary. (In one February Morning Consult poll, 46 percent of Black voters under the age of 45 said they would have preferred Senator Bernie Sanders.)
In late September, Vince Evans, who directed Biden’s southern political strategy during the primary campaign and now works as Harris’s political director, went home to Florida and saw firsthand the lack of enthusiasm some young Black men had for the former vice president. “He wasn’t sure he was going to vote, but I eventually got him there,” Evans told me of one of his cousins. “But he talked about the two things that were top of mind for him—and the other young men in my family—and it was: What can we do to once and for all deal with systemic racism in this country? And job security.” According to a July survey conducted by American University in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, Black Americans under the age of 30 were more likely to fear police brutality, and less likely to trust that Democrats would do what is in the best interest of the Black community. These are the voters the Trump campaign, a Channel 4 News investigation in the United Kingdom revealed, tried to deter from voting in 2016—and the ones it hopes will stay home in this cycle as well.

The margins matter when it comes to Black support. Some voters might be encouraged to vote for Biden because he’s not Trump. As the media obsessed over how Black voters would swing in 2004, one voter told the Chicago Tribune, “I’m not excited about Kerry, but he’s the other guy; he’s the alternative to Bush.” (Kerry won 88 percent of Black votes that year.) Four years later, a record 95 percent of Black voters supported Barack Obama’s historic candidacy. But in 2016, Hillary Clinton was not able to hold on to the coalition Obama built. Even so, she matched Kerry’s numbers, earning 88 percent of the Black vote. As Theodore R. Johnson wrote in The New York Times Magazine last month, “an enduring unity at the ballot box is not confirmation that Black voters hold the same views on every contested issue, but rather that they hold the same view on the one most consequential issue: racial equality.” But will enough Black voters show up to carry Biden?


@Red Shield @Michael's Black Son @Sukairain @YouMadd? @Basil of Baker Street @SupremexKing @Cat piss martini @AndroidHero @Pirius Black @panopticon @johnedwarduado @neotheflyingone @Ishlibidish23 @SJUGRAD13 @BlueHeffner

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Obama speaking to black men

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[DUCKED_OFF]

I wonder what happens when it's time to vote for congress or the next president ?

Democrats can't use the " anybody but trump line" or scare black folks into voting

I see a republican take over on the way for some years if democrats don't do nothing for black folks (if biden wins)

 

[DaHNIC82]

We should take a page from the Isrealies on how do business because BOTH parties fall in line basicalyy kiss the ring. This is why black folks in particular is caught up and neither party is fullfilling our agendas. We play team party politics instead of negotating our chips to where both sides have to fall in line.

And if Trump wins again.. What we do next? We have to wait another 4 years for the democrats to get their business together in hoping for a new messiah to save us? The majority of blacks don't vote republican so there goes that. Plus the Republican party is full of CACS who wouldnt even look at you unless you a uncle tom or rich. But if the black vote is a bargaining chip then they would be forced to cater to our demands.

Bringing both parties to the negotation table and attempting to bring something for us is a better option.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[Secure Da Bag]

another reason why roland needs to fall back. his old style way of looking at shyt would fukk things up.

Like Cory Booker, these are things that should have been done from the very beginning, not near the end of your campaign. Whatever Biden is doing is working now. So do that and when he's in office, then he can go on a "ok, black man, what can I actually do for you" tour.

 

[G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman]

I wonder what happens when it's time to vote for congress or the next president ?

Democrats can't use the " anybody but trump line" or scare black folks into voting.

I see a republican take over on the way for some years if democrats don't do nothing for black folks (if biden wins)

Google Tom Cotton...we don't care if you don't vote as long as you not bytching about what's being taken from you or trying to convince others not to vote

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Barack Obama and LeBron James are joining forces in a late push to increase Black voter turnout.

Barack Obama and LeBron James are joining forces in a late push to increase Black voter turnout.
By Astead W. Herndon

Former President Barack Obama appealed directly to Black voters during a drive-in rally for Joe Biden last week in Philadelphia.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Former President Barack Obama will continue his efforts to increase Black voter turnout ahead of the election, including an interview with the basketball star LeBron James set to be published this week.

Mr. Obama joined Mr. James for the interview as a part of the athlete’s More Than A Vote initiative, according to sources familiar with the event. More Than A Vote, the collective of athletes led by Mr. James, has focused its political efforts on issues like limiting misinformation among Black voters and increasing poll workers in Black communities.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Mr. James said he cared more about seeing Black turnout increase than President Trump’s removal.

“You can see it every time. Who didn’t vote? What counties didn’t vote? What communities didn’t vote? And a lot of that has had to do with our Black people,” Mr. James said. “So, hopefully, we can get them out and educated and let them understand how important this moment is.”

Mr. Obama’s efforts to increase turnout come as some Democrats worry that Black voters, and specifically Black men, could back President Trump in greater numbers in this year’s election. National polling shows Mr. Biden with a healthy lead over Mr. Trump heading into the campaign’s final days. However, the same polling shows Mr. Biden with tepid numbers for a Democrat among Black voters, traditionally one of the party’s most loyal constituencies.

In recent stops for Mr. Biden’s campaign, Mr. Obama, the nation’s first Black president, implored Black voters to support his former vice president. Black voter turnout reached record highs in 2012, when Mr. Obama won re-election, but fell in key swing states for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In addition to his interview with Mr. James, Mr. Obama also has spoken with Black men in Philadelphia and recorded a video message for the Shade Room, a media company whose social media and pop culture sites are popular with young Black Americans.

In Philadelphia this week, Mr. Obama spoke directly to Black men.

“What I’ve consistently tried to communicate this year, particularly when I’m talking to young brothers, who may be cynical of what can happen, is to acknowledge to them that government and voting alone is not going to change everything,” Mr. Obama said. “But we did make things better.”

Astead W. Herndon is a national political reporter based in New York. He was previously a Washington-based political reporter and a City Hall reporter for The Boston Globe. @AsteadWesley

 

[kevm3]

Roland is right with his assessment. There's a reason that despite how overtly racist Republicans can be, black men aren't rushing to the polls for Democrats like they used to