When former President Barack Obama admonished some Black men who he said were not “feeling the idea of having a woman as president,” some Democrats saw it as an urgent, necessary call to action to voters who are desperately needed to push Vice President Kamala Harris to victory.
For others, Mr. Obama’s tone threatened to scapegoat some of the Democratic Party’s most reliable supporters, alienating voters who may have grown disillusioned but are still persuadable.
For Mr. Obama, it was a remarkable, if calculated, risk.
As he spoke on Thursday to a room of overwhelmingly Black supporters in a campaign field office in Pittsburgh, the former president quickly acknowledged that he was about to make people uncomfortable with some “truths.”
He recalled the excitement Black voters showed for his 2008 candidacy, which was integral to propelling him into history as the first Black president. He went on to say in blunt terms that he could not understand why Ms. Harris was not drawing the same level of enthusiasm — and that the hesitation was “more pronounced with the brothers.”
“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses,” Mr. Obama said. “I’ve got a problem with that.”
He added, “Because part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
On some level, Mr. Obama said the quiet part out loud — amplifying a concern that had been subtly mounting among Black leaders, supporters and organizers after Ms. Harris entered the race, but had rarely been broadcast to a wider audience.
Some Democrats and Black leaders saw Mr. Obama’s comments as the latest acknowledgment by a prominent Black politician of the reality that a small slice of Black men — like men of all races — have historically been reluctant to support Black women seeking positions of power. This year, Democrats have grown increasingly worried about wavering support for Ms. Harris among Black men, particularly younger Black men, as some polls show former President Donald J. Trump making inroads with them.
At the outset of Ms. Harris’s campaign, more than 40,000 Black men logged onto a Zoom call to issue a rallying cry to their peers. Black men, the speakers argued, had a responsibility to step up for the Democratic Party the same way that Black women had consistently done for decades.
But now, as the campaign enters its critical final stage, the striking remarks from Mr. Obama suggest that even the most influential Democrats see nothing to lose in laying out the stakes of the election in the starkest terms.
The former president, who was making his first appearance on the campaign trail for Ms. Harris on Thursday, seemed like the ideal Democrat to make a new push: Among many Black Americans, he is not just a former president but also a trusted messenger.
But his delivery of his message, with its stern, at times lecturing tone, ended up drawing criticism from some Black leaders.
“The party has to stop scapegoating Black men,” the actor Wendell Pierce, a surrogate for the Harris campaign, wrote on social media.
He questioned why Democrats were not striking a similar chord with white men and women who have slid toward Mr. Trump. “This accusatorial tone will make some Black men stay home — which is worse,” Mr. Pierce wrote. “Black men are questioning our party to find out what their loyalty for decades earns them. That’s good. That’s healthy.”
The Harris campaign declined to comment on the internal decision-making behind Mr. Obama’s remarks on Thursday. A person briefed on Mr. Obama’s campaign plans, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations, said that he owned his own message.
Black men are still rivaled only by Black women in their high turnout and loyalty to Democrats. But Black voters broadly have expressed discontent with the Biden administration and the party for a variety of reasons, including economic frustration and a sense that the government has neglected them.
Scholars note that some Black voters have historically been conservative on many social issues and have sometimes equated leadership with masculinity, in part because of gender roles imposed by the church and male-dominated leadership in religious, business and political institutions.
And while patriarchy is not exclusive to Black communities, Democrats fear that it could be a factor if voters on the margins — whom Ms. Harris needs in battleground states — stay home or even vote for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Obama himself seemed exasperated by that possibility.
“And now, you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you?” he asked on Thursday. “Because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”
For some Black female leaders who are working to elect Ms. Harris, however, Mr. Obama’s comments were appreciated.
He said that one reason he was pushing Black men to vote for Ms. Harris was that “women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, praised Mr. Obama’s candor.
“I understand Black young men that feel disaffected,” he said on Friday on MSNBC, but added that Mr. Trump’s long history of racist remarks meant that Black men should never consider him. Those who are, Mr. Sharpton suggested, might be driven by sexism: “It’s got to be some misogyny there. It has to be some, are you against women? And I think that President Obama was the right one to bring the message.”
Still, despite his enduring popularity, Mr. Obama has sometimes been seen as a complicated messenger to the Black community. His remarks on Thursday evoked times during his ascent when, as an Ivy League-educated Black man, he was perceived to be condescending in how he talked about Black people.
In 2008, when he was the presumptive Democratic nominee, he admonished Black fathers, telling a group of Black people during a speech in Chicago, “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception.”
In another interview that year right before Election Day, he discussed efforts to ban low-hanging pants, a popular look among some younger Black men. After first calling such efforts “a waste of time,” he added: “Brothers should pull up their pants. You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What’s wrong with that? Come on.”
During his administration, Mr. Obama at times had a strained relationship with historically Black colleges and universities — even earning the nickname Scold in Chief — for the way he seemed to suggest that they should achieve better outcomes if they wanted more funding.
Quentin James, a co-founder of the Collective PAC, which aims to elect Black officials, said he thought Mr. Obama’s message on Thursday had been “strong” because he took the time to contrast Ms. Harris’s economic strategy with that of Mr. Trump, who Mr. James said had neglected Black communities. But he also issued a warning for Democrats.
“Black men don’t need to be lectured to about values,” Mr. James said. “Most Black men just need to be engaged and informed, and all we’re seeing now are the effects of a lack of spending on communicating and engaging them.”
Even before Ms. Harris replaced President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, she had taken the lead on trying to bolster support among Black men. But she has taken a different approach from Mr. Obama’s.
Rather than arguing that Black men have a responsibility to support Democrats, she has emphasized their right to vote for what they see as in their own interest. In an interview with The Nation in June, Ms. Harris criticized “the underlying premise” of reports questioning why Mr. Trump was gaining ground with Black men. She said this suggested “that Black men should be in the back pocket of Democrats.”
“They all expect you to earn their vote,” Ms. Harris said. “You’ve got to make your case.”
She has on multiple occasions invited Black leaders of civil rights organizations and business groups to her residence to hear their concerns. Democrats are hoping those efforts — as well as Mr. Obama’s more direct nudge — will be enough to move Black men to the polls.
“We have to be careful not to denigrate them for it, but rather invite them in,” Mr. James said. “They just might end up saving our democracy if we do this right.”
The post Obama’s Admonishing Tone to Black Men Presents a Risk for Democrats appeared first on New York Times.
