A return visit to a Michigan city shows Black men divided on Harris

It has been a good year for Killian-Bey, 60, who in August took on a lead violence-prevention role for the city that nearly doubled his pay. But he sours when discussing the presidential election.

Talking to The Washington Post nearly a year ago, he said Black men were being overlooked by both parties. And the ascent of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is Black and Indian American, has not changed his mind.

In December, when President Joe Biden was the presumed Democratic nominee and The Post interviewed Killian-Bey and other Black men in the Detroit area, polls showed waning enthusiasm among Black voters for Biden and the Democrats. After Harris was nominated, a late August Washington Post-Ipsos poll found a significant jump in the number of Black Americans saying they were certain to vote.

But that shift was concentrated among younger Black women. Turnout interest hardly increased among Black men, with 66 percent saying they were certain to vote, compared with 63 percent in April, while turnout interest among Black women rose to 71 percent from 61 percent over the same period.

Reports of apathy among this key group recently inspired basketball icon Magic Johnson and former president Barack Obama to deliver impassioned pleas for Black men to more robustly back Harris at events sponsored by the vice president’s campaign.

The Harris campaign on Monday signaled a need to reach out to this demographic, releasing an “opportunity agenda for Black men” that includes such items as loans for small businesses and a focus on health challenges facing Black men. Still, some of the initiatives are not new or do not target Black men specifically, and it was not clear whether they would affect these voters’ willingness to embrace Harris.

A return visit to Pontiac in September helps explain why Black men have not flocked to Harris in larger numbers.

Their views are complex. Some are inspired by Harris’s rise as potentially the first woman of color to become president. Others are wary, wondering whether her record really shows that she understands the community’s needs. And for a significant number, her emergence makes little difference: They still cannot see themselves in the Democratic platform, and they face a difficult decision of whether to grudgingly support Harris, sit out the election or vote for Republican Donald Trump.

This mixed reception could be critical in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that could swing the election, said Joe Paul, executive director of Black Men Vote. Black men stand to benefit from many of Harris’s policy proposals, Paul said, but she would be well advised to more explicitly address their particular burdens — spotty educational outcomes, disproportionate police violence, high incarceration rates — that stand in the way of prosperity.

“Biden had a clear plan for Black women: ‘Vote for me, and I’ll give you a Supreme Court justice, a Black woman vice president, numerous federal appointments,’” Paul said. “I strongly encourage the vice president to say, ‘Black men, here is my agenda for you.’”

A Pew Research Center poll released last week found that among Black registered voters, 72 percent of men support Harris compared with 85 percent of women, strong majorities but weaker than Biden’s standing at this point in 2020.

While Killian-Bey voted for Biden in 2020 and would never back Trump, he is still not sure whether he will vote this time.

After The Post’s article in January about Black men in Pontiac, a representative from the White House reached out to Killian-Bey and said he should expect a phone call from the president. The call never came.

The letdown was painful, Killian-Bey said. “Do you know how excited my family was? My friends were? Everybody was telling me, ‘Say this, say that — nobody’s ever done this from Pontiac,’” he recalled. “Then you’re going to tell me, ‘Vote for us.’ Really?”

The White House declined to comment.

‘What about us Black people?’

In downtown Pontiac, across the street from where Killian-Bey hopes to one day open a lounge, residents gathered inside the historic Flagstar Strand Theatre on a recent evening to listen to Mayor Tim Greimel’s State of the City address. The theme: Pontiac’s “road to revitalization.”

The city, once anchored by General Motors, was hit by decades of population loss and economic turbulence. Following GM plant closures in 2009, the economy crumbled. The state of Michigan appointed three consecutive financial managers to handle Pontiac’s affairs. Core agencies were privatized; the city only recently reestablished a parks and recreation department.

The mayor suggested that more change was on the horizon, thanks largely to $48 million the city received through Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act. Greimel highlighted a home-improvement initiative, a grant program for small businesses, and $6 million for park improvements, all funded by ARPA.

But standing outside the theater after the mayor’s address, Ahmad Taylor, 47, had doubts.

The Pontiac native had watched the city grapple with financial challenges for years. He had listened to countless plans and promises but saw Black Americans as an afterthought for the Democratic Party. He did not understand why the Biden administration could send hundreds of millions of dollars to Ukraine and not provide more to Americans suffering at home.

Taylor called his vote for Biden in 2020 a “mistake” and said he wished he had backed Trump. He does not know who will win his vote in November. Mostly, he feels despair.

“Nothing has come to fruition. Look at the schools, the playgrounds, the parks. Downtown is struggling. In our community, typically, we vote for Democrats. How has that panned out for us?” Taylor said. “You’re so bold and loud when you want to help transgender people, immigrants. [Harris] said she wouldn’t pass anything for just Black people, but you had no problem with the LGBT community. Give us some hope you’re listening to our concerns.”

Demar Byas, who co-founded an organization to mentor youths in Pontiac, said he was cautiously optimistic about the mayor’s plans. But the 45-year-old has watched families across Pontiac forced into difficult decisions because of the high costs of housing and food. Like Taylor, he takes issue with the Biden-Harris administration’s spending on conflicts overseas compared with domestic causes.

Byas said he will reluctantly vote for Harris, viewing November’s election as a choice between the “lesser of two evils” — just as he told The Post in December. When it comes to Trump, Byas has concerns about Project 2025, an agenda assembled by a coalition of conservative groups, though Trump has sought to distance himself from it.

As for Democrats, Byas said, “it’s the disconnect — the [lack of] acknowledgment of the Black community. Because now it’s like, ‘Hey, we need you — we need these votes.’”

This sentiment has led some of Byas’s friends to reject the Democrats altogether. Among them is Bashir Abdul-Aziz. The 46-year-old plans to vote for Trump, who he said does not have the best interests of Black men at heart but “ran the country like a business.” He called Harris an extension of the same old Democratic Party whose promises to Black voters go unfulfilled.

Democrats “talk about reparations for Jews, reparations for Asians, and this and that. It’s like, ‘Come on, what about us Black people?’” Abdul-Aziz said. “I usually always vote Democrat because that’s what we did. Now that I’m getting older, I got kids, I’m starting to see things looking through a different lens.”

James Johnson, a Pontiac native and political director with the group Detroit Action, said that while the Democrats have a platform that speaks to Black women, particularly on issues such as education and representation, he has rarely felt it was targeted to him. He gives Harris some slack, given that she entered the race just a few months ago, but said the Harris-Walz campaign should do more to speak to the “diversity that is Black men.”

“When you talk to Black men, it’s always kind of like, ‘criminal justice reform.’ That’s not a me issue right now. Those kitchen-table issues — Black men have kitchen tables, too,” said Johnson, 40. “It’s a very monolithic view, and it disenfranchises a lot of our people and makes a lot of people feel like, ‘They’re still not talking to me.’”

The 313 Community Barber Shop

At the 313 Community Barber Shop in Northwest Detroit, conversations among the regulars frequently center on the election. Kevin Usher, a corporate strategist and self-described “never Trumper,” relishes the debates inside the shop, where he says it’s often “seven-versus-two or eight-versus-two” — with a majority favoring Trump or arguing that both top candidates are equally bad.

A recent visit did not reflect such a strong pro-Trump sentiment in the barbershop, which partners with Black Men Vote to encourage electoral participation. But it did showcase a good deal of skepticism about Harris, which Usher is quick to challenge.

“It’s always, ‘Democrats don’t care about Black people,’” Usher, 52, said while getting a lineup on a recent Thursday afternoon. “But I challenge them to look up the statistics.” He likes to point to a pair of figures cited by Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in August: Since 1989, 50 million jobs were created under Democratic presidents, compared with 1 million under Republicans.

But Usher also thinks Democrats have done a poor job of conveying their accomplishments, such as the nation’s historically low Black unemployment rate or the anti-lynching bill Biden signed into law in 2022. Harris’s messaging toward Black men specifically has been murky, he said, particularly on topics such as reparations. (Harris in September expressed support for a congressional effort to study the issue.)

“She’s going to have to address it head-on,” he said, referring to her agenda for Black people. “It definitely is a weakness.”

Asked about her outreach to Black men in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists last month, Harris said she knows she must earn their votes just like everyone else’s. Her outreach has included a recent sit-down with “All the Smoke,” a sports podcast hosted by retired NBA players, and an “economic opportunity tour” highlighting the administration’s efforts to help Black entrepreneurs.

Antwan Ethridge, 35, another regular at 313 Community Barber Shop, said he could not imagine not exercising his right to vote. He felt Biden stood no chance against Trump and was exploring third-party options when the president withdrew.

As a father of two children, Ethridge said, he decided to vote for Harris after he heard her promote her economic philosophy. “That’s what made me kind of like her, because I was on the fence at first,” he said. “But the things she said about the working class, that’s what changed my mind.”

Kwame Yamoah walked into the shop in the middle of the discussion and did not hesitate to share that his initial plan had been not to vote: “As I see it, both parties are one and the same,” he said.

Originally from Ghana, Yamoah, 75, said Democrats and Republicans are beholden to similar corporate interests, making his vote inconsequential. But he also had concerns about Harris, including the years she spent as California’s top prosecutor, feeling she played a hand in a U.S. criminal legal system that has worse outcomes for Black and low-income people. And he did not understand why she does not talk more about her relationship with her father, from whom she has acknowledged being estranged.

Yamoah said he would vote for Harris, but only to appease the women in his family.

“To be honest, my wife put so much pressure on me, and my adopted sister put so much pressure on me, because she and Kamala Harris belong to the same sorority,” Yamoah said, referring to Alpha Kappa Alpha. “In order to maintain peace, I said, ‘I’ll just go through with it, for her.’”

The other men laughed.

Talking to Black men

Still, political organizers in metro Detroit who had spoken previously to The Post said many Black men have responded positively to Harris’s candidacy, if for no other reason than to back a Black woman. “It went from how to advocate for us as Black men to ‘We have to protect our Black women,’” said Norman Clement, founder of the nonprofit Detroit Change Initiative.

At the same time, Clement said, many Black men who lost jobs in recent years believe life was better under Trump. Kermit Williams, a former Pontiac councilman and the executive director of the nonprofit Oakland Forward, said Harris has done a good job of focusing on the economy, even if her messaging has been imperfect.

“I think they recognized the issue,” Williams said. “You look at the commercials where Harris is talking about the opportunity economy, that’s 100 percent a pivot from the beginning.”

Cliff Albright, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, disagrees with critics who say Harris has failed to speak to Black men. “If she’s talking to me about ending price gouging, making health care more affordable, [and] when she says that we’re going to restore the protections of Roe and help make maternity and childbearing more safe — that’s not something that we care about?” he said.

Magic Johnson, a Michigan native, spoke recently at a Harris event in nearby Flint, and he stressed the need to mobilize Black men on Harris’s behalf. “Our Black men, we’ve got to get them out to vote,” Johnson told the crowd. “Kamala Harris’s opponent promised a lot of things to the Black community last time that he did not deliver on. We have to help Black men understand that.”

More recently, during remarks in Pittsburgh, Obama delivered a message directly to Black men after citing reports of voter hesitancy that “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”

“On the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences,” said Obama. In Trump, he added, “you have someone who has consistently shown disregard, not just for the communities, but for you as a person … and you are thinking about sitting out?”

Roland Martin, a political commentator who helped organize a “Win With Black Men” Zoom call for Harris that raised over $1 million in just a few hours, said voters like Abdul-Aziz who no longer trust Democrats illustrate a failure by the party to move on from its decades-old playbook. The Harris campaign, he said, must adopt various approaches to target different sectors of Black men.

“Where you have seen a weakness in the Biden-Harris campaign, and now the Harris-Walz campaign, is the lack of pushing Black male messengers out, flooding the zone, to have these conversations,” Martin said.

Martin, whose “#RolandMartinUnfiltered” show has a majority Black male audience, said that gap has allowed misinformation to proliferate about Harris, particularly the notion that as a prosecutor, she was unnecessarily tough on Black men.

Killian-Bey is still doing research about that very thing — Harris’s role as a prosecutor. But he also thinks her economic proposal lacks specifics. He wants details about her infrastructure plan. And he wishes she’d spoken out about the execution of Marcellus Williams, a Black man in Missouri who was put to death over prosecutors’ objections.

He rejects critiques of Harris that he says are rooted in misogyny, such as questions about her ethnicity or her marriage to a White man. Rather, Killian-Bey said, he simply cannot see himself in her platform.

But he says he can still be swayed.

“'Black men, there’s a seat for you. Here’s my platform. How do y’all feel about this, and what needs to be done for this country?'” he said. “If she asks that question, she’s got my vote.”