It’s almost 2 p.m. on Friday inside Toppcuttaz Barbershop in the Dolphin Plaza in Miami Gardens.
With a soundtrack of classic R&B songs humming, men are seated in the chairs wrapped in capes with gold designs on the black fabric. Owner Mike Stevens attends to a client while men in the shop chat about their families and work in the place that is seen as safe for Black men to share their views, unfiltered.
The laid back vibe of the barbershop changes a bit as the conversation shifts to politics. In this election, Black men’s views have become a quandary for the Democrats and something of a pleasant surprise for Republicans. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Oct. 12 found that 70% of Black men likely to vote said they would opt for Vice President Kamala Harris, while 20% said they would back former president Donald Trump. By comparison, 85% of Black men likely to vote had said they planned to support President Joe Biden in 2020. That’s a big difference.
Though Trump has not offered any specific policies aimed at Black men, he has applauded his inroads with that demographic, citing his poll numbers at a recent rally in Nevada. “I’ve gone through the roof with Black men,” Trump said to a cheering, mostly white audience.
But in a year when America has the opportunity to elect the first Black woman president, the concern among Democrats is that Black men aren’t rallying behind her the way they got behind Joe Biden and Barack Obama. The fear that Black men might not vote at all or vote for Trump has become increasingly apparent. Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones said based on his conversations with Black men of all political leanings, many feel “that both parties have a done them a disservice in following through on the things that they said they that they will do.”
The Miami Herald went to speak to Black men in barbershops in Miami Gardens and Lauderhill about how they felt about this year’s presidential election, the reasons behind the perception that they aren’t as engaged with Harris as a candidate, their views on Trump, their thoughts on being blamed should Harris lose the election, and whether Harris’ race or gender is a factor at the time to cast a ballot. Many of the men did not specify their party affiliations (three said they were voting for Harris), but most were critical of Trump and optimistic about the policies Harris has presented in her plan to court Black men.
Harris’ final push for the Black male vote
Harris knows she needs to improve with Black men. She even rolled out a nine-page plan targeted toward Black men on Oct. 14. Harris’ policies include $1 million of forgivable loans of up to $20,000 for Black entrepreneurs, expanding the child tax credit, and providing up to $25,000 for a down payment for first-time homebuyers.
Among the dozen Black men the Herald spoke with, the economy, childcare, entrepreneurship, affordable housing and jobs were the primary concerns.
Sitting inside Toppcuttaz, Marcus Bright, 41, of Hallandale Beach, said he is concerned about universal child care. “Black men are under tremendous economic pressure. We want to take care of our families and people are spending more on their mortgage or more on child care than their mortgage and rent,” said Bright, who is a father to a five-year-old boy. “So we should not be waiting until kindergarten to put our kids in a fully covered, high quality educational situation. Those are the kind of broad policy stances that we can really feel on a day to day level.”
Nodding his head, Yanatha Desouvre, 40, of Miramar, agreed, adding that entrepreneurs need support.
“Economics is the equality, it’s where things can level up,” Desouvre, a professor of entrepreneurship at Miami Dade College, said. “Entrepreneurship levels the playing field… How are we going to support those opportunities for entrepreneurs? Because entrepreneurs create jobs. Those jobs create taxes.”
Ruban Roberts, a 55-year-old business owner agreed about the importance of creating a path to become business owners in the Black community. “I believe that education is designed to create workers. I want our kids to learn to become entrepreneurs and not to be workers.”
Desouvre said Harris’ entrepreneurship policies left him “hopeful:” “That’s inviting, because it takes a lot of money to start a business. It takes a lot of effort. However, we still have to not only propose it, but execute on that and see how that rolls out, and, again, how that’s funded. I’m not eased, but I’m hopeful.”
Miles away at Dillion’s Image barbershop in Lauderhill a similar conversation was taking place on Saturday. Shop owner Dwayne Dillion’s sleek shop is a more intimate setting with him and two other barbers giving haircuts to clients as college football plays on TV screens. Black and white photos of civil rights trailblazers such as Malcolm X and Georgia congressman John Lewis, who was a proponent of voting rights, hang above a balcony overlooking the space.
For some of the men, Harris’ $20,000 forgivable business loan program was appealing: “I think that’s incredibly important because a lot of small businesses, we need that startup capital in order to get things done, in order to flourish as a business, in order to get off the ground,” said Jefferson Noel, a Florida International University professor and founder of Barbershop Speaks, an organization that engages in intelligent discussions inside barbershops and beauty salons.
“And small businesses – that’s the backbone of the economy. And so by implementing that plan, I believe it’ll be crucial for a lot of young Black men.”
Not about race or gender
Beyond policy and the economy, the men in the barbershop also expressed concern about Trump’s rhetoric around Harris’ race, implying she isn’t really Black.
“It’s insulting to question her ethnicity, her background, as if she’s some type of plant or something like that,” Ezra Dieuveille, 40, said over at Toppcuttaz. “It was very insulting for a Black woman to go through that.”
“And not just insulting to her, insulting to us as Black people,” Stevens said. “Like y’all just gonna play in our face like that?”
Dieuveille also voiced what he called “an unpopular opinion,” and noted that assuming Black men would vote for Kamala Harris solely because of her race puts them in a box and emphasized that they, too, vote on the issues. “But if someone decides to vote for her because she’s Black, that’s their right,” he said.
“Some people are going to vote for Trump because he’s a white man,” Stevens said.
“Exactly,” Dieuveille said.
“That’s all the qualification he needs: White man,” Stevens continued.
Many also took issue with the insinuation that Black men wouldn’t be comfortable voting for a Black woman. Former President Obama was filmed at a recent campaign stop in Pittsburgh urging a group of Black men to not sit out the election. He further asked them to examine whether their misgivings about voting for Harris stemmed from unexamined sexism.
Roberts and Stevens, who is voting for Harris, said the notion of Black men not voting for her based on her gender is preposterous. “All of us have mothers, and I know some of these guys in here who I grew up with. I know them, I know their mamas. [A] Black woman has always done a lot with a little,” Robert said. “I’ve seen Black women with seven kids with a very meager income, feed and clothe all of those children.”
Stevens agreed, saying that in many Black families the grandmother was “the linchpin that held a family together,” providing a stable and protective environment for loved ones and often managed the home, especially when families came on hard times.
“Whether we want to admit it, no matter what your ethnicity is or race is, even the white people amongst our society, the first mom they knew, or the first caretaker they knew was a Black woman,” he said. “So, how are we as Black men gonna sit up here and honestly say we don’t trust the Black woman to handle our affairs? That’s foolishness…Other people, I can understand them balking at the Black woman, but other Black men, I just can’t.”
Trump’s criminal record, Harris as prosecutor
The conversation at Toppcuttaz shifts to Trump’s criminal background and Harris’ background as a prosecutor. In May, Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York, but has yet to be sentenced.
Roberts said voting for Trump highlights the hypocrisy in how Black people with criminal records are treated compared to white people with criminal records. “Every felon should be running for office, if that’s the case,” he said. “You cannot have that standard. It can’t work one way for one group of people, then have it work a different way for a different set of people.”
When people try to use Harris’ past as a prosecutor as a strike against her, Noel takes offense: “Black people are not anti prosecutor, we’re pro justice, we’re anti injustice, and so if you are doing your job as a as a prosecutor correctly, and you’re prosecuting actual crimes, then that’s not a problem,” he said as he got a haircut. “Black people call the police too, and we want people who commit crimes to go to jail.”
Stevens nodded in agreement: “If something happens to your mother, you’re gonna want the prosecutor to do their job to the fullest,” he said, adding if Harris abused her job as a prosecutor he could see the criticisms. “But just to say that she was a prosecutor before, so what? You were a crook before? Let’s talk about that,” he continued, referring to Trump as the men erupted into laughter.
Dacosta Ward, 41, of Miami, described himself as a “Trump guy.” “I thought he was kind of good for things and that he wasn’t the norm,” he said. “Obviously, some of his personal ethics are a big question.” But he won’t vote for Trump this time around. He was also frustrated by Trump’s insisting there was a peaceful transfer of power after the events of Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol building.
Like the other men, he’s worried about the rising cost of housing and if people can make a living. But he’s also concerned about whether Harris will have the support necessary to unify the country and get her policies approved.
“I’m concerned about her not being able to get anything done as a woman. She’s highly intelligent, but this country’s just so sexist,” he said.
Still he questioned why hadn’t the Biden-Harris campaign already enacted some of the policies that Harris had rolled out. “Is Joe holding her back?” he asked.
Gameplanning for the election
Over at Toppcuttaz, the conversation moves to what a potential Harris loss would mean and how Black men’s votes fit into the picture.
Most of the men expressed frustration at the idea that Black men are being singled out if they don’t rally to Harris.
“I think that’s a cop out. It’s a scapegoat scenario technique,” he said of the idea that Black men would be to blame in the event Harris lost, “but the fact that she’s doing things for Black men shows that she’s listening, which is great. You know, I think for us as Black men, we just want to be heard.”
Bright said he was encouraged when he overheard a conversation between two young Black mentees who were gameplanning how they were going to make it to the polls.
“I was so enthused, and was so inspired by hearing that, because it was unprovoked, just in their general conversation, they’re trying to figure out how to vote,” he said. “Here you have two young Black men trying to be engaged and trying to figure out how to maximize the impact of their vote. So I think that’s a narrative that needs to be told.”
When it boils down to it, Bright said, the election will show what kind of America we live in:
“Will America go appeal to the better angels of its nature, or will it go down to the lowest common denominator and succumb to the appeals of some of our most derogatory and base level instincts,” he said. “So we’ll learn a lot about how far America has come on election day.”
“And how far it still has to go,” Dieuveille said.
