The Democratic Party of Georgia and the Kamala Harris campaign hosted a discussion which was hosted by and centered around Black men. “Brothas and Brews” was moderated by The Gathering Spot co-founder and CEO, Ryan Wilson. Wilson was joined by GRAMMY-award winner Jermaine Dupri, North Fulton County Democrats Chair Dontaye Carter, Atlanta Public School Board member Alfred “Shivy” Brooks, Armani White, and Isaac Hayes III.
“If you’re from Atlanta, If you live in this city and you’re a Black man, I don’t see how you’re voting for the other side,” said Dupri. “Listen, I’m telling you. If you live in this city, you love the way this city moves, it’s no way possible you should be voting for the other side.”
The panelists agreed Black men at-large will not achieve the objectives of small business funding, enhanced and stable education experiences for children regardless of zip code until they start voting consistently. 66% of Black men said they planned to vote compared to 71% of Black women, according to a Washington Post/IPSOS poll.
Black men are the second largest voting bloc of the Democratic Party
87% of Black men voted for Biden in 2020, meanwhile, only 40% of white men did the same. In 2016, 81% of Black men supported Hillary Clinton, compared to just 63% of Latino men. Former President Barack Obama received over 87% of Black male support in the 2008 and 2012 elections.
In 1996, 84% of Black men backed Bill Clinton. 83% of Black men helped elect Clinton in the 1992 election.
The idea that Black men at-large are having trouble supporting Democrats is an outright lie. However, the rise of social media has allowed the mainstream media to pick up on conversations that Black men are having regarding issues specific to our community.
“We can’t have a long, exhaustive grocery list of things,” said Atlanta Public School board member Alfred ‘Shivy’ Brooks regarding various policy platforms. “We need to have some very specific, targeted things that will benefit us. And we have to have some political maturity about us; which means the legislation or the policies we’re chasing are not going to specifically say Black men. But, we have to be savvy enough to advocate for policies where the greater collective benefit is going to be in our favor, even if others benefit as well.”
The rising popularity of contrarians is real
Meanwhile, there are prominent Black voices that are relishing being contrarians: Tariq Nasheed, Phillip Scott and Boyce Watkins. Tariq Nasheed recently told his followers that Project 2025 is a nothing burger. Phillip Scott was begging and pleading with black people to support Donald Trump. Lastly, Boyce Watkins said that the elevation of the Black woman will be at the expense of the Black man. It’s not a myth that those voices, and the Black men that support them, are being courted by the MAGA Republican Party.
But, the courtship is masked as capitalizing on Black male grievances. Some Black men at-large don’t want to vote for or trust a cop/prosecutor. Others believe supporting a Black woman will emasculate the Black man. There is a small but loud portion of Black male society that detests a successful Black woman.
The Trump campaign historically says to Black men, ‘what the hell do you have to lose‘? However, the current promotion of the Southern Strategy rooted in white supremacy is very real. How is that?
What’s real and what’s cap?
The Black unemployment rate in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, was 17%. In April 2023, the unemployment rate for Black workers dropped to 4.8%. 400,000 Black-owned businesses closed down because they did not survive the economic downturn due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Black wealth is up 60% from before the pandemic. The Biden-Harris administration earmarked $16 billion to HBCUs. By comparison, former President Trump reauthorized the $250 million funding stream that lapsed under his watch. Lastly, Biden named the most Black judges to the federal court (40% were public defenders), while authorizing $153 billion in student loan forgiveness.
President Biden’s Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted hate crimes and restored historic consent decrees.
“Vice President Harris is committed to supporting minority-owned small businesses,” said Wilson. [She] has plans to increase generational wealth by expanding the startup tax deduction for small businesses from $5,000 to $50,000.”
MAGA’s courtship of Black men and their in lies
22% of the world’s prison population is incarcerated in the United States, the most in the world. That translates to 664 individuals out of every 100,000 Americans. Of that number, nearly two out of every five people imprisoned in the U.S. are Black. For added context, after El Salvador, nine states have the next highest incarceration rates in the world. Those states are Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Dakota.
Cuba is next, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. The representation of Republican governments in those states believe in the tough-on-crime ethos. That idea gained notoriety in the 1960s and reached its zenith in the 1980s.
Currently, the Republicans are championing the destruction of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Fair Housing Act. While simultaneously blaming immigrants from Latin America and Africa for the degradation of American life. It’s based on the idea that MAGA is the master and arbiter of all.
Taking care of home is the key to victory
As a result, the panelists agreed everyone in the room must leverage relationships between influential entertainers/creatives and younger community members. This is part of a greater effort to counter lies and ensure access to accurate information about candidates and issues. The panelists agree they will mobilize prominent community voices to drive engagement, education, and accountability around voting. The results would be not only supporting Vice President Kamala Harris. More importantly, supporting Black women in leadership.
“We owe it to the women that give us life, that calm our fears, that are the backbone of our families,” explained Hayes III. “The women that represent us in ways that we really learn, our sensitive nature, our caring nature, the type of people that we are and to understand what it’s like to be a Black woman in America: where you overachieve, but you get acknowledged less than anybody right the ability to elevate.
