In the final stretch of the presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has been promoting her “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” to help boost turnout among a vital constituency whose support for her has been slipping.
A close read of the plan, which focuses on the economy, entrepreneurship and jobs, shows how much Ms. Harris has learned over the past four years about enacting policies built around race. Such policies usually get held up in court or attacked by Republicans who cast them as unfair and woke-ism run amok.
That’s why the fine print of her plan for Black men says it’s actually a plan for Black men “and others,” a strategy to make sure it could survive legal and political challenges if she’s elected.
When President Biden and Ms. Harris entered office in 2020, they proposed a sprawling racial equity agenda that would distribute federal funds with a specific eye on communities of color and disadvantaged groups.
That effort encountered political obstacles and lawsuits at almost every turn.
In the end, some of the Biden administration’s most prominent racial equity proposals were stalled, scaled back or redesigned to be colorblind, including those aimed at helping Black farmers who have endured generations of racial discrimination.
As the Democratic nominee, Ms. Harris has been mindful of those setbacks.
During their 2020 presidential run, Ms. Harris narrated a campaign video featuring an illustration of a Black person climbing a mountain next to a white person, but starting from below ground level. She explained that equity is different from equality, suggesting that people who start with fewer resources should get more help so that everyone is on equal footing.
But this year, her campaign has been careful to say that the policies in her agenda for Black men will be available to all Americans. That includes a proposal for one million loans that would forgive up to $20,000 for entrepreneurs, an expansion of affordable banking options and a framework for protecting cryptocurrency assets. The plan also includes a promise to legalize marijuana and launch a health initiative that focused on the diseases, like sickle cell, diabetes and prostate cancer that disproportionately affect Black people.
Alvin Jones II, the national executive director of Black Connect, an organization for Black entrepreneurs, said he worried Ms. Harris’s strategy would still face Republican opposition.
“A lot of people feel there’s going to be a way that those who oppose this agenda are going to prevent this agenda from being effective the way it’s meant to be,” Mr. Jones said. “There’s so much anxiety.”
Former President Donald J. Trump has made some inroads with Black voters by tapping into economic frustrations. While a vast share of Black voters say they back Ms. Harris, even modest erosion in their support could be consequential in a campaign that is effectively tied.
Biden administration officials argue that the numbers of Black-owned small businesses have increased dramatically despite the efforts to stall the White House’s policies. Even though the administration had to retool some programs, the officials say, the policies aimed at Black people tend to also help other minorities or people on the lower end of the income scale.
The debate about how policies should prioritize race was thrust into the spotlight in 2023, when the conservative majority in the Supreme Court in 2023 rejected race-conscious admissions at colleges, effectively ending affirmative action.
But the Biden-Harris administration had been wrestling with it already.
The White House in 2021 tried to provide billions of dollars’ worth of debt relief to Black farmers, but the effort was blocked by a legal group formed by the former Trump administration official Stephen Miller. The Biden administration then rewrote the program so that any farmer who faced discrimination was eligible for relief money.
Rick M. Esenberg, who represented white farmers in the lawsuit, said Ms. Harris’s team appears to have learned from legal setbacks.
“It seemed that the Biden administration was going beyond what the court had historically permitted and they had their heads handed to them,” said Mr. Esenberg, the president and general counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
Still, Ms. Harris has made some progress winning over groups that were frustrated with Mr. Biden and wary of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Jones, one of the leaders of the entrepreneurial network, Black Connect, said while he found Ms. Harris’s plan “refreshing,” the fact that it is not specifically for Black men gave him pause.
“It’s like for everybody,” he said.
She has persuaded some voters though. While campaigning in Georgia in October, Ms. Harris met with John W. Boyd Jr., the president of the National Black Farmers Association, and discussed her agenda and ways to provide debt relief to Black farmers and to help them avoid foreclosures.
“She said she was open to working with me on a path forward on debt forgiveness,” said Mr. Boyd. “I thought it sent the right signal.”
The post Harris’s Plans for Black Men Aim to Avoid the Setbacks Biden Faced appeared first on New York Times.
