After New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ran for president as a Democrat in 1972, she famously slammed gender discrimination for derailing her trailblazing campaign. Commenting on the array of forces that opposed her historic bid, she noted, “I have certainly met much more discrimination in terms of being a woman than being black, in the field of politics.” While Chisholm’s lament would seem to minimize the impact of intersectionality on her run, her frustration has deep resonance for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid.
In the run up to the election, it is impossible to separate the egregious racism, white supremacy, sexism, and misogynoir that Harris is experiencing from the toxic conditions that Black women face on a daily basis in their workplaces and communities. During the early phases of her campaign, Harris was smeared as a “DEI” candidate, implying that she was unqualified and ill-equipped to be commander in chief. Invoking the U.S.’ long history of affirmative action and entitlements for white folks, liberal and progressive critics clapped back, emphasizing that Harris is manifestly overqualified for president. According to MSNBC, she has had more time in public service and assumed more leadership roles in government than Trump and Vance combined.
The smearing of Harris is a familiar theme for professional Black women in the public and private sectors. USA Today notes that for every 100 men “who got their first shot at a management position…only 54 Black women and 65 Latinas” did. And while Black women have the highest workforce representation among all female ethnic groups, they remain the last hired, first fired, and the least promoted and compensated in many blue collar and white collar sectors. According to a 2021 Lean In study:
By almost any measure, Black women are facing disproportionately high barriers in the workplace. They are heavily impacted by bias in hiring and promotions; Black women are promoted at a significantly lower rate than white women at the first step up to manager, and more than a quarter of Black women say their race has led to them missing out on an opportunity to advance. They experience more microaggressions than other groups of women.
Escalating attacks against Harris’ “competence” are set against the backdrop of a much touted “surge” in Black male support for Trump. It has been estimated that 25% of Black men are supporting Trump, a majority of whom are under the age of 50. A recent NAACP poll found that Black male support of Trump had dipped from 27% to 21%, a still significant percentage relative to the proportion he received in 2020 (According to Politico, “Harris’ support among all Black voters is lower than President Joe Biden’s four years ago”). To be clear, the majority of Black men have expressed support for Harris. And, indeed, at two recent in person and virtual get out the vote events I attended, Black male support for Harris was full-throated and enthusiastic.
Yet blaring headlines trumpet the noteworthy shift of some Black male voters as further indication of a massive gender gap. Opposition to Harris among Black men evoke problematic tropes about toxic masculinity, highlighting Black male investment in patriarchy and access to white supremacy. In his 2006 documentary, “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes”, filmmaker Byron Hurt unpacks these sentiments with Black male public intellectuals such as Kevin Powell, Jelani Cobb, and Michael Eric Dyson. All three dissect the toxicity of “Black male supremacy” vis-a-vis the historical appropriation and objectification of Black women’s bodies, sexuality, and labor. In the documentary, Beverly Guy Sheftall notes the irony of Black men’s alignment with patriarchy in light of Black women’s unwavering support of Black men. This alignment fuels epidemic rates of sexual and domestic violence in Black communities. As Sheftall argues, “Generally speaking, Black folks do not view rape and sexual violence as urgent issues. [whereas] Police brutality and racism” are always prioritized as the urgent issues Black folks need to focus on. For Sheftall and other Black feminist-womanist thinkers, the absence of intersectionality in some Black movement and community spaces further normalizes misogynoir and gender-based violence.
The virulently racist-sexist demonization of Harris by the MAGA movement amplifies this peril. At Trump’s recent “Nazi rally” at Madison Square Garden, speakers vilified Harris as “the Antichrist”, “mentally impaired”, and akin to a prostitute with “pimp handlers” (weeks before, Trump characterized Harris as a “shit” vice president). The wave of epithets against Harris was magnified by racist hate speech disparaging Puerto Ricans, Black folks, Palestinians, Jews, and Latinos in general. In some regards, Trump’s lack of culpability for the most vile and inhumane attacks against any group that is not white, straight, and Christian underscores how difficult it is to fathom Black male fealty to MAGA’s vitriol. Yet, the uptick in Black male support for Trump tracks with arguments Black feminists have long raised about the marginalization of Black women’s issues when it comes to Black solidarity and racial justice. Blatant lies about how Trump has helped Black communities — eg., the specious claim that his administration issued stimulus checks to Black folks — have exacerbated the misogynoir that already informed the campaign.
Critics of those who call out Black men for aligning with Trump’s toxic masculinity point out that the majority of Black men will not only vote for the Harris-Walz ticket but have consistently supported gender equity issues such as reproductive rights. That said, it’s important to stress that waning support for Harris among some Black men (relative to prior Democratic candidates) is not an isolated incident nor relegated to the presidential election. The painful truth is that Black communities, like the nation at large, have always been plagued by sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy. Writing for Esquire recently, African American writer Mitchell Jackson rightly asks, “What if scores of Black men are withholding their support to both feel empowered and/or to disempower a Black woman and/or to approximate the privilege of a towering patriarch?” These toxic themes will never be eradicated if Black folks in general, and Black men in particular, disavow their existence in the name of some mythic solidarity.
