With the 2024 presidential campaign soon coming to a close, Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to rally Black male voters with proposals to boost their financial and career prospects.
The “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” released on Monday promises that a future Harris administration would provide “1 million loans that are fully forgivable to Black entrepreneurs and others to start a business.” Harris also proposes new “education, training and mentorship programs that help Black men get good-paying jobs,” in addition to legalizing marijuana and offering assistance to Black men for elderly care.
But if that all sounds exclusive to non-Black Americans, the Harris campaign assures it is not. In statements to The Wall Street Journal, the campaign said Wednesday that Harris’ proposals will be open to all Americans, regardless of their race or ethnicity.
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak during a campaign rally at Erie Insurance Arena, in Erie, Pa., Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The vice president is “clear-eyed about how Black men have long been denied the tools that would allow them to grow their wealth, get a good-paying job and support their loved ones—she is championing solutions that will benefit all Americans and address these specific barriers to economic opportunity,” a campaign aide told the WSJ.
The Harris campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
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A person protests outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, June 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The report notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has recently shown hostility towards government programs tailored to a specific race. The court in 2023 struck down college and university affirmative action policies, which made institutions of higher learning consider race in admissions in an effort to mandate diversity on campus.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
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Activist Edward Blum, founder and president of Students for Fair Admissions, has led the charge to force companies and government entities to abandon programs and policies that take race into consideration, arguing any such endeavor is discriminatory. The WSJ reported that in September, Blum settled a lawsuit with the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund, a group that promotes minority female entrepreneurs, in which the group agreed to end a grant program that awarded $20,000 to small businesses owned and operated by women of color.
Blum told the Journal that he would seek to challenge the Harris administration if she delivered on programs that exclusively benefited Black men or any other racial group. “Racially exclusive programs like the one she has proposed have been repeatedly struck down by the courts in the past,” he said.
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The Harris campaign’s proposal comes as Democrats are increasingly concerned about wavering support among Black men, and in particular younger Black men, for Harris, who would make history if she is elected as the nation’s first female president.
Harris and Trump are locked in a neck and neck race in the seven key battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump and will likely determine the winner of the 2024 White House race. Any erosion of support among Black voters, and in particular Black males, could prove costly to the vice president.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.