Column: Do not wait an election year to listen to black men

Going to the final stretch of the 2024 elections, it seemed that each cable news program had a segment dedicated to this question: What will black men do?

The progressives in the field expressed concerns about the participation of the black voters of the voters long before the intermediate works of 2022. But because the volume of Roe vs. Wade allowed Democrats to avoid a “red wave”, the urgency with respect to black men was silenced. That changed quickly once former vice president Kamala Harris became the alleged nominated personality and media such as Stephen A. Smith and Charamagne that God began to question his qualifications without a touch of irony.

In the end, Almost 75% of black men voted for Harrisand all those cable news segments about the concerns of that voting block disappeared. That is unfortunate because, in many ways, the question in the center of everything – “What will black men do?” – It is more relevant today than seven months ago. Since President Trump has resumed the position, federal civil rights offices have been destroyed, subsidies for minority commercial programs canceled and the names of slavery are returning to the military bases. Cable news can be waiting until the next elections to talk about the concerns of black men, but the black community cannot wait so long. Khalil Thompson and Bakari sellers agree.

The couple is part of the leadership team for Win With Black Men, a political defense group that began in 2022. Thompson said he was inspired to begin the group by Win With Black Black Women, which began after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Both organizations were key to starting the enthusiasm for Harris, especially financially, with every million dollars within the days of their campaign.

Now, with the elections behind us and three years of a hostile administration of the White House ahead of us, the Thompson group has announced a 18 -cities listening tour from July for strategies about ways of helping the community outside the political system. The objective is to reach 3,500 black men in person and another 25,000 through a national survey with the hope of building a database to better serve the community. Thompson said it is particularly important to keep people committed now that the elections have ended due to how the White House continues to prove the limits of both presidential power and the support of their party.

“There must be a time when it is correct,” said Thompson, a former operation of President Obama. “We lift our children to understand the basic principles of being a good person … we need to build a system that can properly accommodate and support the vast majority of people in this country who just want Their children do not speak to our children, do not speak to our children.

Sellers added: “Democracy is participatory, and people forgot it for a long time. The options must be on the sidelines or compromise, in any case, you are involved.”

He made that decision at an early age, becoming the youngest black person in the state office chosen throughout the country in 2006, as 22 -year -old representative in South Carolina. His first social justice work echoes his father's, Cleveland Sellers, who was part of the leadership for the Non -Violent Student Coordination Committee during the civil rights movement.

“I prefer to enter the fight, be beaten a bit, face of horror from the front, knowing that I am doing it for a fair and fair cause,” Sellers said.

Thompson said that, in addition to the commitment, Win With Black Men seeks to be a ship to help people financially with their public and edible services bills, since federal cuts and job losses threaten to send millions of Americans to poverty. The current fund collection objective is $ 2.5 million. And although the organization is not partisan, the vendors said that a prominent democrat is the unofficial north star: “We need to return to Jesse Jackson's politics. Know the people where they are, concentrate on the working class and facilitate the conversations that raise people, not to degrade them.”

Few things are more degrading than feeling that your voice matters only once every four years. At least, this next listening tour is a reminder for Democrats that black men are more than a vote.

@Lzgranderson