 "Demoratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris participates in a ‘town hall’ with radio host Charlamagne tha God, in Detroit, Michigan, on Tuesday. Source: REUTERS.")
Democratic nominee for the 2024 US Presidential election, Kamala Harris, called her competitor and Republican candidate Donald Trump “full of mis- and disinformation” and denied his claims that she does not have the interests of black Americans.
During an hour-long radio town hall, Harris also warned that Trump would try to “institutionalise” harsh policing tactics that disproportionately affect Black men across America as she promised to push for legislation to address discriminatory law enforcement practices.
Harris went on to say that she would work to decriminalise marijuana, which accounts for arrests that also disproportionately impact Black men. She even acknowledged that racial disparities and bias exist in everyday life for Black people — in home ownership, health care, economic prosperity and even voting.
While Harris is working on energising Black men in battleground Michigan, Trump focused on women as he faced an all-female audience during a Fox News town hall in swing-state Georgia.
Trump evaded questions about the erosion of abortion rights under his watch and instead talked much about America’s culture wars by vowing to ban male-born athletes from competing in women’s sports.
The November 5 US election 2024 is merely 21 days away and Harris and Trump are trying to woo voters in key constituencies.
If elected, Harris would be the US’ first woman president. She hopes to expand her party’s advantage among female voters. Trump, on the other hand, is showing modest signs of progress among Black men, who have overwhelmingly backed Democrats in the past.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsA slightest shift among any group could swing the election.
During the radio town hall, Harris emphasised that despite the persistence of racial bias, no one has a pass to sit out the election.
“We should never sit back and say, ‘OK, I’m not going to vote because everything hasn’t been solved,’" she said.
“This is a margin-of-error race. It’s tight. I’m going to win. I’m going to win, but it’s tight,” she further said.
The vice president, who took questions from listeners who called in and also from a series of people who joined in-studio, was asked about reparations, or potential government payments to the descendants of enslaved people.
To this, she responded that the notion “has to be studied, there’s no question about that.”
It’s a position she’s taken before, but which Trump’s campaign immediately pounced on, saying the vice president was “open” to payments that could cost billions.
Trump, meanwhile, has called for a return to “proven crime fighting methods, including stop and frisk and broken windows policing.”
The tactic, deployed by the New York City Police Department, involved stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking people deemed “reasonably suspicious." It disproportionately affected Black and Hispanic men, and in 2013 the policy was found to have violated the US Constitution.
Harris said part of her challenge is that Trump’s campaign is “trying to scare people away because otherwise they know they have nothing to run on. Ask Donald Trump what is his plan for Black America. Ask him.”
Trump did not respond to Harris’ criticism during multiple stops Tuesday, including a nighttime rally in Atlanta, where he railed against Democrats, the media and immigrants in the country illegally.
Trump also pledged to ban “men in women’s sports,” a reference to transgender women allowed to compete against women in some cases.
Asked how he would enforce a ban, Trump said: “You just ban it. President bans. You just don’t let it happen.”
This week Harris is expected to announce a series of new proposals dubbed the “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men," meant to offer Black men more economic advantages — including providing forgivable business loans of up to $20,000 for entrepreneurs and creating more apprenticeships. The plans would also support the study of sickle cell and other diseases more common in Black men.
The focus on Black men sharpened last week when former President Barack Obama campaigned for Harris in Pittsburgh and said he wanted to speak “some truths” to Black male voters, suggesting some " just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
The vice president’s campaign says it doesn’t believe Black men will flip in large numbers to supporting Trump, especially after strongly backing Democrat Joe Biden, with Harris as his running mate, in 2020. They are more concerned about a measurable percentage of Black males opting not to vote at all.
Harris’ support among women, meanwhile, has generally been solid since she took over the top of the Democratic ticket, but Trump is aiming to narrow the margins on Election Day.
With inputs from The Associated Press.