Greene: It’s not what Obama said to Black men, it’s how he said it

Instead of being angry at former President Barack Obama for calling out Black men still on the fence about Kamala Harris, we should be embracing anyone so forcefully determined to keep Donald Trump out of the White House again.

After polls suggested that Harris’ support is waning among Black men, Obama, the nation’s first Black president, hit the campaign trail to admonish the disillusioned as only he could do.

“We have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all corners of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” Obama said at a campaign event in Pittsburgh.

“Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers. So if you don’t mind, just for a second, I’ve got to speak to y’all and say that when you have a choice that is this clean, when on the one hand you have somebody who grew up like you, went to college with you, understands the struggles (and the) pain and joy that comes from those experiences … Part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

In some barber shops, that didn’t go over too well.

Radio host Charlamagne Tha God said Obama was “finger waving at Black men” and wondered when white men who don’t support Harris would be admonished.

Wendell Pierce, a leading African American actor, said Obama was going about it the wrong way.

“Awful message,” Pierce wrote on X. “The party has to stop scapegoating Black men. Black men aren’t the problem.”

Their response to Obama’s remarks were strong and well reasoned. But they’re missing the larger point.

And so is Obama.

It’s not so much about what Obama said as it is about how he said it.

Black men are tired of being lectured. They don’t want to be blamed for something else they didn’t do.

It wasn’t their fault that Trump was elected in 2016, the last time a woman was the Democratic nominee. Blame that one on white women.

In 2016, when Trump was inconceivably elected president of the United States, exit polls showed that he received the vote of 53% of white women — even though a white woman was running against him.

How did that work out?

Trump appointed three conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court who overturned the landmark ruling on abortion. Can’t blame that one on the brothers.

Many Black men, and many Black women for that matter, say they are tired of being taken for granted by the Democratic party. Gone, they say, are the days of blind loyalty with no measurable return.

That would almost make sense any other year.

Here’s the problem: Obama seemed to be suggesting that Black men should be voting for Harris because she is Black. She went to an HBCU. She has all the sensibilities. She feels our pain. Yada, yada.

That’s the wrong message.

Black men should be voting for Harris because the other candidate is Trump.

NBA legend Magic Johnson said basically the same thing that Obama said about Harris’ support among Black men, and he didn’t get nearly as much blowback as the former president.

Why? Because Johnson made his argument about the other guy — without pointing fingers.

“Our Black men, we gotta get them out to vote,” Johnson said to a crowd of Harris supporters. “Kamala’s opponent promised a lot of things last time to the Black community that he did not deliver on. We gotta make sure Black men understand that.”

After Pierce’s scapegoating tweet, he said Obama gave him a call to hash things out. He said they’re on the same page now.

“It’s just a matter of messaging,” Pierce told CNN. “The first thing is to approach and engage Black men, accept the challenge, and get out the vote.”

Leonard Greene is a New York Daily News columnist. ©2024 New York Daily News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.