Dear Candidates: Here Is What Black People Want
We long for the same things as everyone else, and yet few campaigns treat us as if our experiences matter.
We predicted that there would be different responses among black people of various ages, locations and family structures, and there were. Not everyone is affected the same way by the issues we all face. The need for adequate health care, for example, takes on greater urgency among black people in Alabama where Republican lawmakers are blocking Medicaid expansion.
But what surprised us the most was how few candidates treat us as if our differences and experiences matter.
Here is what we found:
The most common response among people who were politically engaged was that no politician or pollster has ever asked them what their lives were like. Fifty-two percent of respondents said that politicians do not care about black people, and one in three said they care only a little.
Yet this doesn’t stifle our participation in politics. Nearly three in four respondents said they voted in the 2016 presidential election, and 40 percent reported helping to register voters, giving people a ride to the polls, donating money to a candidate or handing out campaign materials. Six in 10 women surveyed reported being electorally engaged. These responses debunk the myth that black communities don’t show up to vote — we do and we bring other people with us.
Black communities, particularly black women, will be instrumental in deciding the next president. Nearly 60 percent of respondents were women, and nearly half lived in the South.
We want the things that everybody deserves. Ninety percent of respondents, for example, say that it is a major problem that their wages are too low to support a family, and that figure jumps to 97 percent among those who are electorally engaged.
.. For every dollar white men earn, black women, for example, earn 65 cents, whereas white women earn 82 cents. Black families make up a large portion of those who use public housing assistance programs, which are underfunded and lacking in meaningful oversight. And then the average cost of attending a public college with in-state tuition is roughly $14,000 a year — that’s out of reach for black families whose median household income is $40,000.
.. These results may not surprise anyone who is paying attention. But what is surprising is how few candidates address the issues that affect black communities or meaningfully court them.
Consider that, of the first $200 million spent by left-leaning independent groups in the 2016 presidential campaign, none was aimed at mobilizing black voters. In California, where I live, the Democratic Party reportedly raised $30 million in the last election cycle but spent only about $50,000 on black voter engagement.