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My brother’s friend posted a meme on Facebook showing a picture of three blighted houses. The houses were labeled “the ‘hood with Bush, the ‘hood with Obama and the ‘hood with Trump.” It was the same picture. The president changed, but nothing in his life changed.
With feelings like this widespread in Black and Brown communities, it’s not surprising that while Vice President Biden leads President Trump by 8%, it is a lead that continues to shrink here in Michigan. The key to winning this year’s election starts with recognizing and acknowledging the racial and economic justice issues that Black and brown voters face, and it starts here in our state.
As the executive director of Detroit Action, a grassroots member-led organization that fights for political power and racial and economic justice for Black and Brown Detroiters, I talk to folks every day who feel skeptical about voting and distrustful of elected officials. The feelings of alienation are the logical result of years of living under racial terror and abandonment by both political parties. Under Bush, Detroit experienced divestment and depopulation. Under Obama, we faced a massive wave of property tax foreclosures, water shut-offs, a forced bankruptcy and the privatization of several city services. City workers, like my father, were forced to take a significant cut to their pensions.
To the north in Flint, under former Governor Rick Snyder, residents experienced one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history when their water was poisoned. Under Trump, attacks on Black and brown communities, the devastation caused by COVID-19, along with years of Black men and women being killed by police and self-appointed white neighborhood-watch types, have not inspired hope or trust in the system.
If Democrats and progressives are serious about winning Michigan in November, they will need to persuade at least 70,000 Black and brown voters that their lives will be different with a different president. For them, it’s not a choice between Biden and Trump. It’s a choice between voting or staying home. Trump won Michigan in 2016 by a sliver — 10,704 votes out of 4.8 million cast — the narrowest margin of victory in the state's presidential election history. Yet, there were nearly 250,000 voters across the state who voted third party and nearly 75,000 that voted down ballot, but not for president.
I spent the fall of 2016 as Deputy Field Director and State Youth Director for Hillary for Michigan and I saw firsthand that many young people and Black folks who would usually vote Democratic or held progressive values felt the campaigns did not speak to them. In 2012, Obama won the city of Detroit with 281,743 votes to Mitt Romney’s 6,019. Four years later, Clinton won Detroit, 234,871 to Trump’s 7,682. Trump modestly improved on Romney by 1,663 voters, but Clinton saw a 46,872-vote drop from 2012. There are thousands of eligible Black and brown voters in Michigan who didn’t vote in 2016 who could be engaged in 2020 only if they are engaged on the issues that matter to them.
Some in the Democratic party leadership, donors and the consulting class haven’t gotten the message. The assumption for this campaign seems to be that “if you recreate 2016, they will come” instead a strategy to captivate and inspire Black and brown voters. Many people who hear “Michigan” think “white” and attribute the loss to the “white working class” voting for Trump. Much ink has been spilled about so-called pivot counties like Macomb County, Michigan, that twice voted for Obama before turning to Trump. But in 2020, chasing after white working class voters overlooks an obvious point: Black and brown voters are working class, too. They care about jobs, the economy and wages just like white voters do.
While consultants and operatives are working to convince campaigns that the “swing voters” they must target are suburban white women that supposedly powered Democrats to victory in 2018 or disaffected Republicans, the real swing voters are young Black and brown voters who could swing between voting and not voting.
Before the pandemic hit, Detroit Action set a goal of talking to 150,000 Black and brown Detroiters three times before Election Day. The plan included reaching them at the door, in the mail, texting, phoning and on every social media platform that they use. We specifically look at low propensity voters: people who might not turn out to vote unless someone from the neighborhood talked to them about issues that matter to them and connected those concerns to the election. Now with COVID-19, volunteers and organizers who would have been knocking on doors or talking to people at the laundromat are talking to them through text messages and in their social media inboxes. We’re hosting town halls with elected officials where people can share stories of how they are dealing with COVID-19 and make policy demands.
This is hard work. Instead of having a neighbor come to your porch to talk to you about the election, now we have to do it by phone. Gone is the intimacy and trust associated with knocking on doors and seeing someone who looks like you. And for the population we serve — young adults, families of those who’ve been impacted by the criminal legal system, renters and those who are homeless — that human connection is essential.
The conversations we have are about getting people to not be bystanders in the political process. This is not just about pinning our hopes on a politician that comes around every four years. It’s about building power — for ourselves — to hold accountable the corporations and institutions that have wronged us.
If Democrats want to win, their campaigns must also do this work of deep listening and connecting with Black and brown potential voters. There are at least five strategies they can start with right now.
First, Vice President Biden and other campaigns need to acknowledge the harm and structural barriers that have caused disillusionment in government and institutions. That means addressing systemic racism head on: it is us with no drinking water, getting shot by the police and sent to buy groceries for wealthy white people during the pandemic. It is Black and brown businesses that aren’t going to make it through COVID-19. It’s my neighbors who are going to be foreclosed upon and evicted. We need to hear a convincing case that, finally, new leadership will fix these chronic problems with real policy solutions, including plans to deliver jobs and wages that are enough to support a family.
Second, simply acknowledging harm isn’t enough. Conversations with Black and brown voters must be different going forward. Too often, they feel like candidates — from both parties, but particularly from the Democractic Party — treat us like spectators, bodies and numbers, not real decision makers. We’re asked to vote but are considered an afterthought when it comes to key decisions like state budgeting, taxes, or divesting from prisons and jails to fund health care, education and other common goods. With respect to young voters, this means going beyond college campuses and young professional organizations and finding the young Black and brown people who are in working class jobs or are unemployed, especially now with COVID-19.
Third, political parties must appreciate the full range of Black and brown voters’ experiences. In Detroit, we care about climate change; it’s not just a white suburban issue. Detroiters like me are tired of the violence and “crime” (though some things should not be criminalized). But we're also tired of our loved ones being locked into no-win situations because lawmakers withhold resources from our community, while prison and police spending balloons. While there is still a public debate about what it means to #DefundThePolice, almost all Detroiters agree that we can no longer defund our public schools and public health entities. Investing in those things could keep folks from being locked up. If someone comes around to talk to Black and brown voters only about criminal justice reform, instead of reimagining safety and investing resources in what our community needs, then they will lose.
Fourth, the Democratic party and philanthropists should invest in Black and brown civic engagement groups, instead of out-of-touch party hacks. Campaigns tend to spend far too much money in short-term tools like TV and radio, where consultants can make commission off ads placed. Traditional Black figures in the party establishment continue to push a business-as-usual strategy of only targeting churches and Black businesses without offering any substantive policy plans. They invest fewer resources in long-term planning and on-the-ground work, like field and relational organizing. Yet, it’s this work that will inspire infrequent and new voters.
Fifth, leaders must recognize that voting is just one important tactic in a much larger arsenal. Winning in election years means continuing to organize Black and brown voters in off years and supporting our fights for equitable policy and against corporate bad actors. Change comes from building multiracial, multigenerational leaders for the long haul. Our members range from 16 to 60 and are committed to building a Michigan where everyone has the freedom to thrive. That work begins in the state’s poor and working-class communities — long before they ever appear at the polls or in the halls of power.
As thousands of people of all backgrounds filled the streets in months since George Floyd’s murder, one thing should be clear to Democrats up and down the ballot: if they refuse to address the breadth of Black and brown issues, especially structural racism, they will lose Michigan and other battleground states.
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Branden Snyder is the Executive Director of Detroit Action, a grassroots member-led, community-based organization fighting for political power, racial and economic justice for working-class Detroiters. He is a born and raised Michigander who has been involved in local, state and national community and electoral politics for over 10 years. Twitter: @bsneezy313
