There are many issues at stake in the 2024 presidential election: the economy, immigration, climate change, the crisis in the Middle East. And yet, as a recent panel discussion at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School underscored, the politics of race and identity still emerge on the campaign trail and in the debates.
The moderator, journalist Eugene Scott MC/MPA 2015, said, “Gender and race play an important role in this election, and we haven’t had as much conversation about it.” The recent reflects the importance of identity attributes, with 70% of likely female voters now supporting Harris since the last poll.
Joining Scott, a fall 2024 IOP resident fellow, were Khalil Gibran Muhammad, the Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy and director of the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project (IARA); Cheri Beasley, former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and professor of law at Elon College; and Cornell William Brooks, the Hauser Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit Organizations and professor of the practice of public leadership and social justice, director of The William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at ĚÇĐÄvlogąŮÍř, and former CEO and president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Scott started by asking the panelists what has not surprised them this campaign season. Muhammad said he was not surprised at former President Donald Trump’s attempt to define Vice President Kamala Harris as an illegitimate candidate, much like the birther accusations against Obama. “From the deliberate mispronunciation of her name,” Muhammad said, “to the ascription of her identity as not Black but really Indian.” He also noted, new false accusations that Harris is “mentally disabled since birth.”
“We’re talking about the Vice President of the Unites States. No one has questioned anyone else’s heritage or qualifications or history in public service.”
Beasley agreed on the comparisons to the Obama election related to racial identity but also noted she was not surprised by lack of respect Harris is experiencing because of her gender. “We’re talking about the vice president of the Unites States,” she said. “No one has questioned anyone else’s heritage or qualifications or history in public service.”
Brooks added that while he is not surprised, he is shocked at the “creativity” of the racist and sexist attacks. “Maybe it’s because I’m an old-school Black man, and maybe it’s because I’m an ordained minister,” he admitted, “But I find the puritanical and misogynistic attacks outrageous and offensive, especially when we know Harris is running against against a man who has faced dozens of accusations of sexual abuse.”
In addition to being used in attacks against Harris, stereotypes and bias have played other roles in campaign rhetoric. Scott noted that immigration and the role of immigrants is a key concern for both parties.
“I think this is a point worth saying in part because the ascription of criminality to entire categories of humanity,” Muhammad said. “In this case, blaming immigrants for crime problems where they are generally underrepresented in our domestic crime statistics is a very old, racist political strategy and it goes back over a hundred years in this country.”
He noted the comments by Trump and Vance about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, falsely accused of eating pets. “It is at a level that is both representative of a deeper pass at the same old story, but in some ways new territory,” he added. “The Republican party has redefined itself in the wake of Trumpism in ways that is not representative of the party over most of its history.”
“[B]laming immigrants for crime problems where they are generally underrepresented in our domestic crime statistics is a very old, racist political strategy and it goes back over a hundred years in this country.”
The cost of these accusations has deep repercussions, especially in the media in an era of mis- and disinformation. “It’s almost impossible to dispel the rumors and falsehoods that people can put out about you,” said Beasley, who has run for political office six times, most recently for the U.S. Senate in 2022. “The other thing we don’t talk about is that it is dangerous,” she added.
Scott asked Brooks about activism, especially following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. “I don’t feel like personally, as a journalist, that I see activists have as much influence in this current election as they did in 2020,” Scott said.
“I think you may well be right, and I am sad that you’re right,” replied Brooks.
“In the wake of the George Floyd murder, we had 26 million Americans taking to the streets and the largest, most geographically, generationally, racially diverse protest in American history,” he said. “In the wake of that, the activism and the advocacy of activists authenticated their electoral voice.” That voice, the portal into the political arena for many young people, has become marginalized, Brooks said. “And when you delegitimize their portal into electoral politics, that is deeply problematic.”
Muhammad called out recent legislation designed to curb civil liberties and the right of assembly and the chilling effect on people’s willingness to gather. “As a policy matter,” he noted, “we have to recognize that in the wake of those protests, Florida passed anti-riot legislation that basically squelched civil liberties in the right of assembly and enhanced penalties for protestors who could be very easily accused of assaulting police officers by merely objecting to any police action in the context of a protest.”
“The irony of course is that it isn’t that activists have gone away,” Muhammad continued. “A number of protests moved to college campuses because they were already there, as we have seen this with the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the past year.”
“The difference is now young people focus on substantive hope, hope with the policy agenda, hope with the legislative priorities, hope with respect to what you are going to do within the first 100 days of office.”
And yet enthusiasm among young voters, as noted in the IOP Youth Poll, continues to climb.
“North Carolina is going to be very active in this election cycle,” said Beasley, who teaches in the state. “People are very excited and very engaged on both sides of the aisle. And it’s important. While North Carolina is clearly in the South, it is the ninth largest state in the nation, and yet the largest voting bloc in the state is not affiliated.”
And while North Carolina is perceived to be a “red” state, Beasley sees the youth vote can create a swing. “Voter registration drives are huge, and people are working really hard to make sure that folks understand the rules around voting as they continue to change,” she noted. “As an example, a huge case in North Carolina was just decided that prevents students at the University of North Carolina from using their mobile IDs as a form of identification at the polls.”
Brooks added a cautious observation.
When President Obama was running in the 2008 democratic presidential primary, Brooks said, Civil Rights attorney Vernon Jordan famously noted to Hillary Clinton that she was "running against a movement and a movement predicated on hope and change.”
Now, Brooks said, there’s certainly hope and the prospect of change. “The difference is now young people focus on substantive hope, hope with the policy agenda, hope with the legislative priorities, hope with respect to what you are going to do within the first 100 days of office. I didn’t hear that during the Obama campaign. This feels to me more substantive, more hopeful, and therefore more realistic, more likely to happen.”
View a , including a Q&A with students.
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Banner image: Eugene Scott MC/MPA 2015, moderator, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Cheri Beasley, Cornell William Brooks.
Photos by Martha Stewart