Black men are waiting for a Democratic Party that delivers for them

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Black men today face a unique reality that warrants consideration: Under nearly any relevant index for measuring the quality of American life — how far we get in school, our finances when compared with those of our white counterparts, and how long we will live — Black men consistently rank last or near last. There is not a Black man alive in this country right now who has ever seen Black male unemployment equal to or less than that of his white counterparts.

This is true even more acutely for a 34-year-old Black man born in 1990 who may have voted in every presidential election since his 18th birthday, saw the election of a Black president and spent more of his adult life with Democrats in the Oval Office than Republicans.

How could we not be asking ourselves: Come November, which candidate can help us change course?

History might suggest that Kamala Harris’s campaign for commander in chief would be met with near unflinching support from much of the Democratic faithful — women, Black, Latino and college-educated voters. Pew Center data estimates that from 1994 through 2019, both Black and Latino registered voters have consistently identified as Democrats at rates higher than white voters. Yet in a moment where political allegiances of the past would seem to carry the day, Democrats are increasingly challenged in maintaining their stronghold among Black male voters.

Black men’s reconsideration of the Democratic Party is the worst kept secret of the progressive left. Black voters who aren’t Democrats still may be a small minority, but with the speed and reach of the internet these voices are increasingly amplified at levels exceeding what many ever thought was possible. Regardless of the outcome of the November election, Democrats cannot afford to dismiss this as tomorrow’s problem. The margin for victory will be tight on either side, and even in a world where Ms. Harris is victorious, this issue is not going away or shrinking in its significance.

In many respects, Democrats have themselves to blame for this disturbing trend by not controlling what has been in their power to control. While Republicans seemed to ignore the Black vote entirely, Democrats failed to prioritize policies that would have spoken directly to Black voters.

For example, there is no reason that the expiring portions of the Voting Rights Act should have been left to the Supreme Court to begin gutting with Shelby County v. Holder when Democratic legislators had decades to codify many of its tenets. Likewise, a commitment to police reform would have meant that once the George Floyd police reform act died in Senate committee because of Republican stonewalling, Democrats should have remained dogged in their pursuit of these much-needed changes to police conduct.

Where Democrats have had wins on the legislative front, they have been lackluster in trumpeting them to their base, creating a chasm that has been filled with skepticism and unverifiable theories. For Black men, particularly younger Black men who disagree with some of the positions of the Democratic Party, there is a frustration around not feeling like the party’s agenda speaks specifically enough to them and their concerns. They often point to pieces of legislation that target specific groups and give the impression that the party is more interested in courting new demographics of voters while not paying enough attention to its most stalwart supporters.

There is also the sense that, even with the emergence of important members of the Democratic bench, including Wes Moore in Maryland, Maxwell Frost in Florida and Brandon Johnson in Chicago, the party itself has largely become a party of women. This sentiment exists in sharp contrast to Republicans, who seem to be fashioning themselves as a political party of and for men. While some point to a rise in patriarchal appeals and misogynist sentiments against Harris as part of the cause, along with any number of other excuses, those sort of half-baked explanations are not only lazy but also flatly insulting (and alienating) to Black voters.

The laziness is a miscalculation, borne partly out of Democratic Party strategists and leaders who might be more fluent in the language of the liberal elite boardroom than they are the nuanced lingo of the barbershop. Student loan repayment is a worthy cause to champion, especially in a tough economy, but what relevance does that have when Black male enrollment on college campuses is dwindling? Opting to lump Black men in with the working class or small business owners, which has been a widely used Democratic messaging strategy, without specific call outs to our demographic is another example of why a “rising tide lifts all boats” approach is not sufficient. An absence of recognition echoes an all too familiar sentiment for Black men of existing in America but never being fully seen.

This is deeper than simply desiring a shout-out onstage. The insulting part is to mischaracterize our concerns by building an agenda for our community around criminal justice and policing reform. While important, this fails miserably to recognize the myriad ways in which issues like the economy, education, health care and employment have unique and disparate impacts on Black people and, more specifically, Black men.

Even as the vice president has centered her economic platform on appealing to working-class Americans, too little attention has been paid to how many Black men have been marginalized, if not excluded altogether, within the working class via wage disparity, for instance. Harris’s recent economic speech in Pittsburgh singled out small businesses, but the absence of discussion on how Democrats intend to close America’s racial wealth gap or address nagging unemployment rates among Black men still leaves much to be desired.

Democrats have for far too long been a party with poor messaging and even worse messengers to Black men in America. Harris has an opportunity to reverse this sentiment. Her emergence at the top of the Democratic ticket seemed to signal that she understood this point, evidenced by her economic listening tour targeting Black men and her recent comments to the National Association of Black Journalists, in which she acknowledged a need to earn the Black male vote. There still seems to be, however, a disconnect between what Harris may recognize as a problem and what the party seems to prioritize.

Why would any sizable number of Black men shun the efforts of the Democratic Party that believes it has presented itself as the most viable option for decades — especially in light of the alternative, Donald Trump, and his absolutely abysmal history with Black men? It is seductive to place the blame largely on the shoulders of the Biden presidency, or to assign too much credit to Trump’s ability to connect with the most base elements of some Black men’s humanity. Neither of these reasons can be summarily dismissed, but they fail to give the context or nuance that this conversation deserves.

Democrats have spent too much time drawing symbolic distinctions with Republicans without illuminating substantive differences. If I am to be last under blue, as I was last under red — but able to survive both — then I am largely unmoved by being sold a vision of “less last.”

The immediate concern for Harris and Democrats isn’t a sizable exodus to the Republican Party but the possibility that Black men may not vote. Failing to acknowledge the growing drift of Black men away from the Democrats is exactly how we arrived here. A denial of this problem, no matter how adamant, will not make the problem itself disappear.

Harris’s entrance in the presidential race appears to have slowed the drip for Democrats. Her numbers among likely Black voters are far better than Trump’s and outperform President Joe Biden’s among this same demographic at the time he abandoned his candidacy. She has to contend with the couch as much as she does Trump. It also seems that leaning into forward-facing messaging has begun to land with voters who were all but checked out of this election cycle.

Democrats’ ability to craft clear and direct messaging to Black men can help them win more of their votes. Sound civil rights policy is one of the clearest ways to signal to Black men, many of whom may have doubts about the “big tent” inclusiveness of the Democratic Party, that their votes matter. Both Harris and Democrats could benefit from expanding the umbrella of what civil rights entails. Even if abolishing the carceral state or defunding the police would be out of line with Harris’s political ideology and too radical in a tight election cycle, there are other ways to connect various policy efforts to civil rights.

Where access to employment has left Black men behind, the ability to gain access to the full benefits of America’s economy is an issue of civil rights. Protection from environmental racism is a civil rights issue. So is removing barriers to success that disproportionately affect Black business owners, as is closing the achievement gap among Black men in primary school. Learning to engage Black men and, more broadly, Black communities around issues like the struggle to enter and stay in the middle class is the political equivalent of walking and chewing gum, and Democrats must learn to do it better.

The more Democrats shift their immediate thinking to see Black men as persuadable voters, and court them in the aggressive manner that they do independents and centrists — not only through messaging but also through sincere policy efforts — while stretching to keep hard-line progressives happy, the better the chance they have of regaining Black men who have left or who are considering leaving the party.

Charles Coleman Jr. is a civil rights lawyer, a former prosecutor and a co-host of the MSNBC special “Black Men in America: The Road to 2024.” This article originally appeared in the New York Times.