Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president this 12 months, is aware of she faces an enthusiasm gap with Black male voters. However does she know the right way to attain them?
“It’s essential to not function from the belief that Black males are in anyone’s pocket,” Harris said recently throughout an interview with the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists. “You bought to earn their vote. So, I’m working to earn the vote.”
She may begin by actually assembly Black males the place they’re: the barbershop.
Though Harris attended a panel in a South Carolina barbershop in November 2019, she appears to have spent little time visiting Black barbershops throughout her present bid for the presidency — to her detriment. Along with a number of Black male celebrities who’ve related themselves with Donald Trump, comparable to actor and rapper Ice Cube (star of the film “Barbershop”), a brand new NAACP ballot reveals that more than one-fourth of Black males beneath 50 plan to vote for Trump.
Harris may simply make her case within the hundreds of barbershops that dot America. It’s there the place Black males of various socioeconomic standing and age collect to get haircuts, whereas socializing and discussing problems with the day.
For many who say a lady can’t join with males in such an area, I did. I spent two years hanging out in a barbershop in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, researching my upcoming ebook, “The Headmasters of Brooklyn: Barbering, Blackness, and Brotherhood.”
Once I inform folks about my work, their first query is, “What was it like being a lady in that house?” somewhat than, “What have been Black males discussing? Or: “What are their cares and considerations?” Black male constituents need to have the Democratic nominee for the presidency exhibit they matter to her.
Harris might sit within the scenario room in her function as vice chairman, however a scarcity of presence in Black barbershops appears to relaxation on a troubling notion: that ladies, particularly ladies of shade, have to ask permission or have a surrogate to enter male-dominated areas. Harris’s ladies constituents have to see her confidently current in these predominantly male public areas.
If I can enter a Black barbershop to conduct ethnographic analysis for a number of years, then Harris can tour barbershops in Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Milwaukee and past to talk with Black males.
Harris’s staff has successfully used social media and influencers to focus on Gen Z. Harris has toured dozens of small, native companies. She ought to bear in mind the barbershop is a traditionally essential enterprise and social house for Black communities.
Black barbershops have been websites for folks to prepare politically towards racial inequality and to get Black males who’ve been disenchanted with electoral politics registered to vote. Docs have even used the barbershop to enhance public well being, coaching barbers to display screen clients for hypertension and different situations that disproportionately have an effect on Black males and sometimes go undiagnosed and untreated.
As a result of barbershops in working-class city neighborhoods are additionally frequented by middle-class Black males who stay in additional prosperous, suburban areas, the barbershop may be a web site for Harris to succeed in suburban, politically average swing voters and older generations who’re much less more likely to encounter her messages on social media. She may attain Black males who’re eligible however not registered to vote.
Harris may recruit Black barbers to speak to their clients about making a plan to vote, confirm their voter registration at voter-registration stations, and description the primary points on the poll.
Harris, who has principally averted discussing her race and gender, ought to lean into the highly effective optics of Black barbershops, simply as President Biden and former President Barack Obama did. She ought to hold the longstanding custom of Black politicians visiting the barbershop throughout their marketing campaign to sign her curiosity and dedication to the problems and desires of Black communities.
In contrast to myself, who spent years in a single barbershop listening to the lads’s natural conversations, Harris has lower than two months to construct rapport with Black males throughout the nation. Harris should enter with a set agenda and be ready to debate prison authorized reform and housing insecurity, situations that make it troublesome for Black males to vote.
Shatima Jenique Jones is a medical assistant professor within the Gallatin College of Individualized Examine at New York College and a Public Voices Fellow.
