Do We Owe Black Men an Apology?
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By Joseph Williams, Word in Black
After Kamala Harris’s defeat by Donald Trump, the question remains: Did 20% of Black men really decide this race?
After Kamala Harris’s stinging loss to Donald Trump in the election on Tuesday, the social media Blackisphere chopped up why an accomplished Black woman — the sitting vice president, a former senator and prosecutor — lost. How, they wondered, could Harris have crashed out to a scandal-plagued, insurrectionist convicted felon, an old white man who was one of the least popular presidents in recent history?
To some, the villains are obvious: the roughly 20% of Black men who, according to exit polls, voted for Trump.
“I just seen a black man say ‘i didn’t vote for Trump…. I voted against Trans rights and LGBTQ people rights, High inflation and a Broken Economy,’” television personality Ts Madison wrote on X. “Trying to Hurt a small group of people as a BLACK person definitely shows me that you don’t want rights…. You want privilege!”
Not so fast, said Joy-Ann Reid, host of MSNBC’s “The Reid Report.”
“Every four years, I go through this ritual,” she said Tuesday night, noting 8 in 10 brothers chose Harris, not Trump, at the ballot box. “The world just wants to say that Black men are realigning, and they’re all gonna run to Donald Trump,” even though the Latino vote shifted far more dramatically to the former president than in 2020.
“It is not Black men. They are not shifting,” she said. “You are not seeing Black men shift. Please stop.”
The Struggle for Justice included the fight for voting rights.
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