Leaders push Black men to vote for Biden
Enraged by Trump signal to white supremacists
A coalition of elected Black Democratic men said Wednesday they’re forging networks — ranging from traditional centers of the community, barber shops, to pandemic-era gathering posts on Zoom — to mobilize Black men in Florida to vote in the presidential election.
Their objective is to convince Black men, whose voter turnout significantly lags Black women, to vote this year — based on what they warned is an ongoing threat from President Donald Trump and the promise of a Joe Biden presidency.
The nine elected Black leaders, all men and mostly from Broward, MiamiDade and Palm Beach counties, said Trump’s performance in the Trump-Biden debate vividly illustrated why Black men need to mobilize and vote.
“Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that he wants to take away our most powerful nonviolent tool,” said state Rep. Bobby DuBose, a Broward Democrat. “His call to [the] white supremacist group the Proud Boys to ‘stand by ’ and telling his followers to go to the polls and watch them is straight-out voter suppression. Trump inflames racial violence and divides the nation. He denigrates, villainizes, ridicules our leaders, athletes and protesters when they stand up for Black lives.”
The event, coordinated by state Rep. Shevrin Jones, a South Broward Democrat, was planned well before the debate.
“Many people might ask the question, ‘ Who is Donald Trump?’ Let’s be clear who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump is the one who after George Floyd was killed, he hid in the White House and went and played golf that weekend, and never addressed the nation,” Jones said. In November Jones becomes the state senator in a Broward/Miami-Dade county district he said has a higher share of Black voters than any other in the state.
Proud Boys
During the debate, Trump didn’t explicitly condemn white supremacist groups or their role in some of the violence that has marked some protests in recent months. Referring to the Proud Boys, he told the far-right extremist group to “stand back and stand by.”
“I understood the code language that he was giving off. He has motivated those who represent the worst in our country, and that’s white supremacists …. that’s a code that sent chills down my spine,” said Kevin Chambliss, who was elected in August to a Florida House of Representatives district in south Miami-Dade County.
Chambliss grew up in Mississippi where he said his church pastor received death threats for his activism and where some of his fellow Black students had rocks thrown at them at the University of Mississippi.
“I’ve never been this afraid before. I will fight and I stand with the brothers. And we will fight with the most powerful non-violent weapon that we have, and that is our vote,” he said in a video news conference with other Black male elected Democrats.
But Clarence McKee, a Black Republican from Parkland, dismissed the reaction to what Democrats said was Trump’s “dog whistle” to white supremacists. “That’s bull,” he said. “It’s amazing how they’re using that.”
McKee, author of “How Obama Failed Black America and How Trump Is Helping It: The Dirty Little Secret That The Media Won’t Tell You,” published in August, termed the question from moderator Chris Wallace to Trump as “a trap,” adding that Trump “could have done a better job answering it.”
The challenge
The motivation for the Democrats is clear. “Black men, especially in Florida, are a critical voter bloc to the democratic party, and our participation will be critical in deciding who will be the next president,” said Clifton Addison, the Biden campaign’s African American vote director in Florida.
Data show that Black men who are eligible to vote do so at a consistently lower rate than Black women. In the 2016 presidential election, a Pew Research Center study of national Census Bureau data, found 54% of eligible Black men and 64% of eligible Black women voted. The difference between men and women among other demographic groups was negligible: 3 percentage points among white voters, 2 points among Hispanic voters and 1 point (men higher than women) among Asian voters.
When Black voters turn out, they overwhelmingly vote for Democratic candidates. Exit polls from 2016 show Hillary Clinton beat
Trump 89% to 8% among Black voters nationwide. Among white voters, Trump won 57% to 37%.
They also see potential because of a gender gap, with 2016 exit polling showing just 4% of Black women but 13% of Black men voting for Trump. One caveat: data in exit polls are oftentimes shaky.
Alan Williams, strategic adviser to the Biden campaign in Florida, said the effort aims to “make sure that Black men stand up. Because when Black men vote, the world listens. So we have to give our brothers the reason to capture that spirit they had back in 2008 and 2012 when our brother Barack Obama was on the ballot.”
Action plan
Addison said much of the effort is part of a “brother to brother” effort to mobilize Black men and “restore confidence in a broken political structure.”
Jones said he and others were organizing events in Black barbershops, which function as community centers in the Black community, detailed on film, in academic journals and in news accounts. Jones said his effort was focusing on men who aren’t typically part of political conversation.
State Sen. Randolph Bracy from Orange County said he’s involved in a virtual barber shop effort in which men reach out to all their networks to get other people to join, something he said is being “spread pretty rapidly on social media.”
Councilman Reggie Leon of Miami Gardens said the Black bicycling group Breaking the Cycle is riding through Black and Hispanic communities throughout Miami-Dade County every Friday night and Sunday morning pushing voter registration and encouraging people to vote.
Jones — whose father Eric Jones, the mayor of West Park, is senior pastor of Koinonia Worship Center in South Broward — said churches play an integral part in the effort. Addison said the Biden campaign has had a registration Sunday, in which faith leaders encouraged congregants to register to vote and to sign up to vote by mail. Another Sunday will focus on persuasion and Sundays will focus on action, which means voting.
Alan Williams, a strategic adviser to the Biden campaign in Florida, said there are multiple other efforts by the campaign, including “Af-Am small business Mondays,” during which Black small business owners learn about Biden policies; a brother-to-brother program convenes weekly (along with an equivalent sister-to-sister effort); a Caribbean connection program aimed at Englishspeaking and Creole Caribbean American voters; and outreach to young Black women encouraging their Black fathers to vote.
And on Oct. 14, the birthday of Floyd, who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis, there will be events around the country focused on mobilizing voters.
“We’re trying to make
sure that we cover all the different lanes and not miss anybody,” Williams said.
On Tuesday, the Biden campaign announced print, radio and television advertising in Florida that includes specific messages for English-speaking Caribbean Americans and Creole advertising in the Haitian community.
Issues
Though most of the Democratic officials offered a litany of complaints about the president, they said there were multiple positive reasons to vote for Biden, including his running mate, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, who is Black.
DuBose and Bracy said the issues that are most salient for Black men are entrepreneurship and the economy, and they said Biden would help Black men on that issue.
Coral Springs Commissioner Joshua Simmons also cited economics. “This is about closing the racial wealth gap, this is about investing into Black-owned small businesses, this is about reshaping the future for our Black children,” he said.
Republican view
McKee, a communications consultant who has long been active in the Republican Party and civil rights, and years ago worked as a Senate staffer in Washington, D.C., and in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said Black men should vote for
Trump.
“I don’t know what Biden offers to Black people,” he said, adding that many Black voters favor school choice, oppose “wide open” immigration as a threat to their jobs, are not adamantly pro-choice, and benefited economically from the booming economy before the coronavirus pandemic.
He also touted Trump’s support for historically Black colleges and universities, and signing prison reform legislation into law. He said Black voters need to be reminded about a Bidensupported crime bill from years ago. “Biden put how many Black men in jail?”
“The opportunity is for more Black men to vote for Trump. They’re not going to tell you about it, that’s for darn sure. They’re not going to tell you ‘I like Donald Trump.’ The quiet and silent group, there’s a lot of that,” McKee said.
Williams said Black men in Florida could make the difference on behalf of Biden. “When we sit on the sidelines, we allow somebody else to play the game. And when we get in the game we know that we can score touchdowns. And we know that we can bring home a victory. And our vote is our touchdown,” he said. “Nov. 3rd is going to be our victory. So let’s go and do what we’ve got to do brothers.”