Black Community Has the Power to Change Elections

By Mone Holder | Black men and reproductive support. Support the women in your lives, their reproductive freedom, ability to earn and preserve, and individual agency.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion, disproportionately affects women of color, who have historically faced burdensome costs and logistical obstacles in obtaining reproductive health care.

As abortion-related trauma re-enters Black households, however, Black men cannot afford to shirk responsibility for supporting the wives, daughters, mothers, sisters and friends the ruling affects directly or indirectly.

In a June 2022 interview with NBC News, sociologist Rodney Coates said the trauma for Black men boils down to “feeling helpless and hopeless, where you cannot control this thing or protect the Black woman. Your role in this is going to have to be supportive.”

Coates, a professor of critical race and ethnic studies at Miami University in Ohio, is not alone.

According to a recent Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of All* Above All Action Fund:

• 91% of Black men surveyed oppose government interference in abortion decisions.
• Nearly half, or roughly 48%, of Black men personally support the right to abortion and want it to be legal and available.
• Another 43% of Black men who personally oppose abortion oppose the government making that decision for others.
• Seventeen percent of Black men say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion.

What this tells us is that as the general election approaches Black men are paying closer attention to abortion issues than at any other point in U.S. history, and candidates’ stances on the issue may carry more weight than their own personal feelings about the candidates themselves.

We have an unprecedented opportunity in this moment to educate candidates – national to down-ballot – about the undue peril overturning Roe has created among Black families and the stark reality that their stance on the issue can absolutely tank their chances of gaining a foothold among male Black voters.

Moreover, Black men have an opportunity to show the women in their lives with their votes that they unequivocally prioritize in public what they cherish in private: the health and bodily autonomy of the women they love.