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One way or the other, we discover ourselves in a nationwide dialog about Black males and our reluctance to help Vice President Kamala Harris over ex-President Donald Trump. Over the weekend, the New York Instances launched a ballot that exhibits Vice President Harris at 78% amongst doubtless Black voters, which places her 9 factors behind the place President Joe Biden was with Black voters in 2020. Different polls present Trump hasn’t gained practically as a lot help amongst Black voters because the Instances ballot signifies, however with Election Day proper across the nook, and the race being a tie proper down the center, Harris supporters are clearly involved.
One Democrat who doesn’t look like as frightened as some is Sen. Raphael Warnock, who made an look on CNN Tuesday to guarantee people that Black males are going to end up for Harris and remind us that Trump’s historical past with Black males consists of full-page advertisements in a number of publications calling for the execution of the Central Park 5 (now the Exonerated 5).
“Hear, let me inform you one thing this morning. Black males will not be going to vote for Donald Trump in any vital numbers. There’ll be some. We’re not a monolith,” Warnock instructed CNN’s Dana Bash, who requested him in regards to the Instances ballot. “However as Black folks normally, and Black males particularly, think about who Donald Trump is, as they think about the truth that that is the person who actually took out a full-page advert within the New York Instances saying that these younger youngsters again within the Eighties who have been accused of a horrific crime ought to obtain the loss of life penalty.
“After which when it was confirmed that the Exonerated 5, the Central Park 5, have been truly harmless, Donald Trump has proven no deal of concern about what they went via, no deal – no little bit of contrition about it,” Warnock continued. “He’s doubled down on his place. That is who he’s. And black males know that as they watch him cope with his personal prison issues and issues, that the prison justice system definitely doesn’t deal with them the best way it handles him.”
Not that we would have liked to go that far again in historical past to search out cases the place Trump was being openly racist, however Warnock instructed no lies. Even after they have been exonerated after they have been wrongly accused as youngsters of attacking and raping a white lady in Central Park in 1989, Trump made it clear he nonetheless had it in for the 5 Black and Latino males, considered one of whom, Yusef Salaam, has been outspoken about his disdain for Trump in addition to his help for Harris.
Anyway, all of this comes not lengthy after former President Barack Obama made a cease in Pittsburg and addressed the subject of Black males who’re reluctant or unwilling to vote for Harris, saying, “A part of it makes me suppose — and I’m chatting with males immediately — a part of it makes me suppose that, nicely, you simply aren’t feeling the concept of getting a lady as president, and also you’re arising with different alternate options and different causes for that.” His remarks sparked controversy with some accusing the ex-president of setting Black males as much as be scapegoated ought to Harris lose in November.
Warnock didn’t tackle the controversy, however he did emphasize that the excellence between Harris and Trump is obvious and that Black males, whereas not a “monolith,” can see that Trump just isn’t our orangey-white savior.
“However, you’ve acquired Kamala Harris, who in her work as a prosecutor discovered methods to present individuals a path in direction of a greater life, who has spent her complete life as a lawyer, as a senator, and now as vice chairman, centering the issues of atypical individuals,” Warnock stated. “Once more, we’re not a monolith, however this concept that giant numbers of Black males are going to vote for Donald Trump, it’s not going to occur.”
I suppose we’ll see in a number of quick weeks.