Charleston’s Black Men Talk Politics Ahead Of The South Carolina Primary
Saturday mornings for many Black men are reserved for a generations old institution where issues of the day are discussed, perspectives are exchanged, and gospel truths are established.
It’s not church, but it’s close.
These things are part and parcel of the barbershop, the “Black man’s country club,” as the 2002 movie of the same name contended. It is here that no subject is off limits, where old and young chatter, where the latest neighborhood happenings are talked about, where fathers introduce sons to the barbers who will give them their first cut, and where Black men never have to codeswitch.
Most importantly, it’s where politics can freely be discussed without apology.
It was at such a place, Michael & Co., a well-known tonsorium in Charleston, South Carolina on Saturday where a group of brothers sat and talked about the upcoming Democratic primary while getting fades, tapers and shaves.
These Black men, some of working age, some retired, all say they will vote in the primary, but are undecided and also understand much of the apathy surrounding elections in general.
“I know what it is to try to tap into people who are not engaged,” said Mike Miller, 50, the shop’s owner and also Charleston County’s Register of Deeds, literally the first African American to hold that position in its 239-year history.
“In the south, older Blacks vote 98-99 percent of the time. They remember the experience of being blocked from voting. Young folks are a little more disconnected. It doesn’t take as much to get an older person to vote.”
According to SCVotes.org, in South Carolina, more than 1 million of the state’s 3 million registered voters are nonwhite with the majority of them identifying as Black. In fact, African Americans make up about two-thirds of the Democratic electorate there. In the 2016 primary no county reported more than 40 percent turnout. Hillary Clinton won with 73 percent of the vote.
Even so, the men suggest that the voter apathy has much to do with where people find themselves socioeconomically. Blacks make up a little more than 27 percent of the state population in South Carolina, but the unemployment rate is 5.2 percent, compared to 2.4 percent with whites, the Economic Policy Institute reports.
This is probably the primary issue Black men, particularly those of working age and raising a family, wrench their hands over here. Politicians, they say, have done little to help ease their minds and that is why they are largely undecided.
“If we look at unemployment in the Black community,” Miller speculated, while giving a customer a shape-up. “Males are probably at 18 to 20 percent. Among those who have been incarcerated it may double, but among the educated, there’s more employment opportunities because they’ll have the skills. So the war of wages comes down to not whether or not I want to pay you more, I’d like to do that, but whether or not I can pay you what you’re worth.”
Where do the Democratic candidates, who have spent collectively as much as $17 million on social media and television ads, figure into this and other conversations among Black men? The answer is they don’t. Their presence wasn’t felt until someone noticed that getting the South Carolina Black vote would be crucial to pursuing the Democratic nomination.
“Candidates take [voters] for granted, thinking Black people are homogenous, but we’re not a one-trick pony,” said Darrin Griffin, 51, who is retired military and plans on voting in the primary. However, he doesn’t believe that former Vice President Joe Biden or Sen. Bernie Sanders, the frontrunners here, would do African Americans much good, so he’s leaning maybe towards Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
“As far as the connectivity with Black people, they have none. They have surrogates who are paid. So it becomes about the lesser of two evils and who will give a good showing and that won’t be Biden or Bernie.”
Biden retained the lead in a Winthrop University poll with 24 percent to Sanders 19 percent. But with a win Saturday night in the Nevada caucuses, it seems as if Sanders is coming to South Carolina with some momentum. Except, the men at Michael’s say it’s not clear that any of the candidates has what it takes to actually beat President Trump.
“This is the first time since 1988 that I’ve thought it’s not who is the most skilled or qualified, it’s who can beat Trump,” said Robert Mundy, 72, a retired Charleston policeman who calls himself a “product of the 60s” who attended segregated schools as a child. He feels that among the current Democratic field, none of them are capable of winning the White House in November and it’s because they don’t seem really serious about the Black vote.
“When you’re 13 percent of the population and only 7 percent of that votes, they think ‘who cares.’ If I win in New York, California, Michigan and Pennsylvania, that’s all I need.”
If nobody has really made a decision on who they will support, would local politicians be able to sway them? Arguably, the most influential Democrat in South Carolina who holds public office is Rep. James Clyburn, and he has yet to publicly endorse any of the candidates.
“Clyburn’s influence means a lot, but I don’t know if he can knight the next person,” said Nathaniel Jackson, 51, who owns a prosthetics company. “But it is better to have Clyburn on your team than not.”
South Carolina, overall is a red state. More than 54 percent of the vote went to Trump in 2016, although very few Black South Carolinians voted for him.
Even though Barack Obama won this area in 2008 and 2012, the consensus here is that it didn’t mean an automatic turnaround for Black people. In fact, Obama’s political foes were conspiring against him from day one, said Michelle Jenkins, 50, a legal assistant, who was the lone woman in the barbershop. “The day he was sworn in they were plotting,” she said. “We didn’t get a chance to see what happened on the inside.”
It’s been a long time since Obama was in office. Apathy and cynicism have both grown in between those years. Looking back, nobody here believes that there was much benefit of having Obama in office other than the image of seeing one of their own in the White House, a “permanent teachable moment,” says Miller. After a lengthy discussion, he still doesn’t endorse anyone, but says he has an idea of what will happen next Saturday during the South Carolina primary.
“Biden will get most of the votes, but not all of them,” he says, as he calls the next customer to sit in his chair. It’s a symbolic moment that suggests that this particular group of Black men aren’t about to give up their voting power to just anyone and the Democratic contenders still have a rather long way to go with many of them.
