ABINGTON, Pa. \u2014 The predominantly Black crowd here responded with deep sighs and some laughter when the discussion in Tuesday night\u2019s presidential debate turned to Donald Trump\u2019s baseless attack on Kamala Harris\u2019s racial identity.<\/p>\n
Why, a moderator asked the former president, did he believe it was appropriate to weigh in on such a topic?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t. And I don\u2019t care. I don\u2019t care what she is,\u201d Trump replied.<\/p>\n
One woman in the crowd retorted loudly: \u201cThen, why\u2019d you say it?!\u201d<\/p>\n
She was referring to Trump\u2019s comment in July accusing Harris of once hiding her Black heritage, which she has routinely highlighted in her career. On Tuesday night, Trump went on to defend himself, claiming without presenting evidence that he had \u201cread where she was not Black,\u201d and then \u201cread that she was Black.\u201d He added, \u201cEither one was okay with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the moderator asked for her thoughts on the comments, the vice president, who is Black and Indian American, called it a \u201ctragedy\u201d to have someone running for president who \u201chas consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people.\u201d She referenced a 1970s racial bias case against Trump\u2019s company; his promotion of false claims that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States; and his decision to take out a full-page newspaper ad calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty after the 1989 arrests of the \u201cCentral Park Five,\u201d five Black and Latino boys who were later exonerated of assaulting and raping a woman in New York.<\/p>\n
Attendees nodded in agreement and listened silently to Harris\u2019s response.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do believe that the vast majority of us know that we have so much more in common than what separates us. And we don\u2019t want this kind of approach that is just constantly trying to divide us, and especially by race,\u201d Harris said. \u201cI think the American people want better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes we do!\u201d another woman yelled out.<\/p>\n
The response at a debate watch party, where nearly 200 community members gathered outside a historically Black church, offered one snapshot of how some Harris supporters see Trump\u2019s attack on her racial identity, and how they want her to respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought she handled it in a professional way and brought it back to, you know, let\u2019s not make it about division. Let\u2019s bring us together. Let\u2019s come together and let\u2019s build our country up,\u201d said Haywood Willis, 59, echoing a point several other attendees made in interviews at the gathering in a Democratic area some 20 miles north of the Philadelphia, \u201cThat\u2019s what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Willis, a financial analyst, said he wished Harris and Trump had elaborated more on their policy plans during the debate but he liked that Harris stayed on message, focusing on unity \u2014 while Trump behaved like a \u201cschoolyard kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
The watch party, which the Salem Baptist Church, Montgomery County and the City of Philadelphia hosted, was held on a football field next to the church, which is the oldest historically Black church in this left-leaning county. Billed as a nonpartisan event, it featured a 33-foot screen to watch the debate and a DJ and food trucks before the debate began to energize the crowd. Organizers also set up tables with information on how to register to vote.<\/p>\n
Marshall Mitchell, pastor of Salem Baptist Church, said his hope was that people left debate night feeling more engaged and informed on their choices.<\/p>\n
A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that the commitment of Black Americans to vote this fall has rebounded since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. And among Black registered voters, 82 percent say they will \u201cdefinitely\u201d or \u201cprobably\u201d vote for Harris this November, the poll found. That\u2019s up from 74 percent who said they would support Biden in April, albeit still lower than Biden\u2019s 87 percent mark among Black voters according to 2020 exit polls.<\/p>\n
Sydney Wilson-Roberts, 29, said that, as a young Black woman, the biggest moment for her was hearing Harris defending women\u2019s reproductive rights and calling out Trump\u2019s shifting views. She said it\u2019s the most important issue driving her to vote this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll say he\u2019s for IVF and for certain things when it comes to abortion, but I don\u2019t believe him,\u201d said Wilson-Roberts, an events manager, sporting a Howard University shirt. \u201cAnd I truly believe that, if elected, she will have my reproductive rights in mind and all of the women across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Branford Jones, 32, criticized Trump for saying that Black voters like him more because of his indictments and mug shot and undocumented immigrants are taking away \u201cBlack jobs.\u201d Trump renewed the latter comment during the debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not believe that he will do anything for Black folks or have Black people\u2019s best interests at heart,\u201d said Jones, who owns a music production company.<\/p>\n
Jones said he went into the debate night clear-eyed about his support for Harris and felt most of the party attendees felt the same given her credentials, not only as a former senator and prosecutor, but as a multiracial woman who attended Howard University and belongs to Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically Black sorority. He added he was hopeful that undecided Americans in other parts of the country left feeling similarly about the vice president.<\/p>\n
Dannita Brooker, 70, said Harris\u2019s responses to Trump \u2014 particularly on race \u2014 were effective because she was defining him and forcing him to explain himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told his story of what he did, and he didn\u2019t like it. He didn\u2019t know how to respond,\u201d said Brooker, a pastor who lives in the nearby borough North Wales. \u201cHe wants to be in the limelight. He wants to be the star. And he\u2019s not the star anymore. He doesn\u2019t know how to deal with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping for the best, but I live in Trump territory,\u201d Brooker added. \u201cAnd the election isn\u2019t over.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
ABINGTON, Pa. \u2014 The predominantly Black crowd here responded with deep sighs and some laughter when the discussion in Tuesday night\u2019s presidential debate turned to Donald Trump\u2019s baseless attack on Kamala Harris\u2019s racial identity. Why, a moderator asked the former president, did he believe it was appropriate to weigh in on such a topic? \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}