To be a black man in america means having the weight of the world on your shoulders. It forces a different outlook, it gives a different perspective. It is being often talked about, but rarely being spoken to. It means being your Brothers Keeper. Dont move, a vote. Standing tall, proud, and unapologetic. Navigating america as a black man comes with a different style, a cadence, a rhythm thats all our own. But at this moment, more than anything, it means challenging the status quo and remaking politics in our own image. From the Street Corner to capitol hill. What do you have to lose . Look, what do you have to lose . Its a moment where we defined our narrative for ourselves. Where we get to say who we are. What we believe and what matters most. I am trymaine lee, a journalist and storyteller, who has spent nearly two decades telling our truth. And i am Charles Coleman jr. , A Civil Rights attorney whose passion for the voices and the issues of communities. This is a journey to understanding what it means to be a black man today in a highly divided nation. A show about how we see america and how we experience it as one of the most important and still most overlooked voting blocks, and how america sees us. This is black men in america road to 2024. Welcome to this conversation. Whats, up my boy . How are you feeling . Chilling . Lets get this thing started. Ive been waiting for this for a while. Its time. For a while. Lets get going. What was your first conception of black manhood, when you knew it was a thing, what a black man is . So, i grew up watching a lot of action movies. So you had, like, james bond, indiana jones, all these people who were rugged white dudes. John wayne. Right. And then the first thing that sort of tip me off toward just from a Pure Masculinity Standpoint was karl lewis in Action Jackson. Action jackson was the deal. It was that deal, right . For me, we were always surprised surrounded by black females. G. I. Joe, roadblocks. Our eyes and ears were tuned to that. I think those were the earliest, Action Jackson was a big one. Billy d, of course. But often, in my family, my uncles. They were really important to me. Being a black man in america is kind of complicated. It often means experiencing a multitude of forces and identities bound together. Sometimes in concert, sometimes colliding. We are loved and hated. We are feared and revered. We are a lot of things. But we are no monolith. We are the epitome of nuance. With another president ial election on the horizon, we are checking in with black men at the sometimes Great Intersection Of Culture and politics, to hear what matters most in their communities and at the ballot box. My brother, my brother. How are you feeling . Everything is good, blessed and highly favored. Happy birthday, again. You are 40 years old, man. You, that is a blessing. Thank you, man. New decade. To be a black man at 40, i made it this far, that is a gift. Totally. I think sometimes you take that for granted, you know . Then we have parties and celebrations once you get older, you kind of realize, everyone dont make it to that age. Thats right, thats right. Even when its long, your life is still short. Youve got to marinate in it. What would you say is the biggest thing you are thinking about going into 2024 . For me its absolutely two things. Safety and the wealth gap that exists between blacks and the rest of the country. When you say safety, what do you mean . Public safety and Police Brutality issues, things like that. As the father to a young man, that is paramount in my life for the past 25 years. I grew up in an area where gangs were prevalent. I was more concerned about my son being stopped and shot by the police than i was about gang violence. Im agreeing with not. I think wealth gap is something that is extremely important in this next election. Our generation is kind of in a space where we are earning a little bit more. Some of us might be in that dynamic where we are earning more than our parents did. We kind of have this survivors remorse kind of mindset, of where do we kind of fallen society these days, you know what i mean . Yeah, wealth gap. Whether it is Police Violence or political violence, black men are sometimes targets and sometimes shields. To understand why being either matters, and to dig into a host of other issues, we decided to connect with three black man who, in their own ways, have taken issues affecting our communities head on. The Reverend Al Sharpton is a legend in both the civil rights activism. He has been fighting the power for more than 60 years, and hes also the host of the Prophet Program politicsnation on msnbc. Benjamin crump is often referred to as Black Americas attorney general. Hes A Civil Rights lawyer whos represented the families of dozens of unjustly killed Black Americans, including ahmaud arbery, george floyd, and breonna taylor. And beneath the butcher is an acclaimed rap artist from buffalo, new york. He is a pillar and an institution in that city. He was instrumental in supporting the White Supremacist add the Buffalo Grocery store in may of 2022. As blackmon, 2020 for what is the biggest thing you are listening for in terms of someone who is asking for your vote . One issue. Equal protection under the law, Criminal Justice. Everything else can begin and end if we are protected to live under the law like Everybody Else. I cant be economic freedom, yall. Once we have economic freedom, you know, all the other freedoms are attainable. Education, Quality Health care, making sure youve got good police in your community. But right now how many funerals will reverend al have to pay for because black people cant even afford Life Insurance . My thing is, like, something thats going to directly affect my community. From being a rapper, a lot of those issues, its there for us to clean up. You know what im saying . One people call my phone, its the holiday season. People call my phone all the time, they need things for their kids, they cant do certain things. Anything thats going to directly affect my community, you know what im, saying where it will take a load off of us, a burden off our shoulders, i am all for it. Thats what im going for. You know where im going. I know where you are going. You know im going. About saying that you would support trump. Do you still feel like . That this is what im going to say. Ive learned a lot since that day, that comes from frustration about things not being right in my community. And wanting to try a different way, you know what im saying . What i learned, im not a political person, i am just boots on the ground in the city every day. Its very few changes that reach down, trickle down in our community. I have a lot of flak back from that, but what i realize is this. I did realize that a lot of black people voted trump. They just dont put it out there like i did. I havent voted since obama. You know what im saying . I dont think anything has driven me to go to the polls. I will be honest, man. The one thing i believe is that hes got to get to the streets. If they want us to be motivated to come out and vote, weve got to make sure people know what the administration is doing. I think the administration is doing a lot. They just aint messaging it right to the neighborhood in our community. Trump in them, youve gotta give them a little credit for this. They do go get there base red meat. What is it about black . When theres a sizable chunk of us leaning trump, because of the machismo, the disaffection. Why so many brothers find something appealing that trump . I think is a lot of machismo. I think a lot of plays that swagger. Summarily needed. I think it was wrong alienation. But i kept telling a lot of the sisters, and dont just talk about black women. Talk about black men magic. Am i right . You 100 right, man. Its just like, not being versed politically, knowing what i know. Its like, you know, trump wears who he is in front of us. It was disappointing, maybe being behind biden, coming out and figuring out his stance from previous years. Maybe we thought this guy was a different guy. We like to take people at face value. We like to see who people are when they stand in front of us. Sometimes its not easy to tell who people are. You know something, i think it is a true messaging problem. Because when i think, we are thinking about the Criminal Justice, Police Brutality piece , i mean, the biden administrations doj has done more than all the other administrations combined, practically. I mean, christian this is, through the first black woman she has prosecuted more Police Officers than biden and won the cases. Reagan, trump, clinton, combined. She said, no, i am going to call balls and strikes. If you show me a video where they killed ahmaud arbery, kicking in and lying about rihanna taylor, they killing tyre nichols, she said im prosecuting. And then shes been doing. It they attack her for it. As a former prosecutor, the thing that i would always have to deal with it is this notion of the circular argument, we go where the crime is. I tell people all the time, if youre looking for something, you will find it. Right. It is self filling in terms of, no, you are going and finding crime. If you look somewhere else, guess what, you will find the crime as well. They come up with things to profile us for. And, so whatever laws were made, i believe this with my heart. We can get rid of all the crime in america overnight, just like that, if people ask how change the definition of crime. Of course. If you get to define what conduct is going to be made criminal, you cant predict who the trouble is going to be. Our existence they made the laws that way. They made the loss to criminalize our culture, black culture. I mean, i think about eric garner, i think about stuff like that. I did nothing, im sitting here the whole time. Dont touch me. Do not touch me. Guy lost his life. And then george floyd was trying to you have to think about the profiling things that come up with two profile us for. Pretext reasons, it happens every day. They say, you cant wear baggy pants. Make that a crime. Right. You cant have milk cartons in your yard, make that a crime. Come and mess with black people once they have the confrontation, and then they just snowballed from there. They find other things. The violent repercussions. But 2022 had the highest recorded number of Police Killings ever on record. And we werent marching the way we were marching. All the reform that was supposed to happen, we had a Record Number 2022. The reforms failed, it didnt make it. Why are we where we are . Because weve got to have movements, not moments. And thats what i said when we was in the thick of trayvon, george floyd. Everybody gets mad for a moment. Oh, we dont even want to deal with the traditional if you dont have traditional organizations lined with those young folk so that those moments turned into movements, they just let it pass. And once it passes, its gone. Coming up on black men in america, the road to 2024, from brooklyn to capitol hill, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries talks about the upcoming election and whether america has held up its end of the deal for African Americans. Has america made good on its promise to black men . And if so, how so . If not, how not . And later, we are kicking it with Grammy Nominated artist jeezy about why some black men are backing donald trump. At least you know what his agenda is, because he tells you. Like they, say The Devil You Know is better than the one you dont. We will be right back. E wil start your day with nature made. 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We make money from ads, but they dont follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. It almost became a clichi in a, drug you see trump and blacks for trump, those signs, its almost a joke but some of those are serious. It is something real. I wonder how much of that is mitt and how much of that is reality in terms of, are we talking about outliers . Or are we talking about a significant enough portion thats going to shift where the electorate moves . Trump has become this Unlikely Hero to some for Criminal Justice. When he asks, what has trump done for black . Looks a lot of people say, the that is resonating with some people. To get some insight into why some Blackmon Support the republicans, charles had the Basketball Court at howard university, with former Republican NationalCommittee ChairMichael Steele. In 2009, he became the first black person to chair the rnc, but in 2020 he voted for joe biden, after trump said the data deadly charlottesville riot, which featured White Supremacists and not see protesters, had fine people on both sides. Hes now one of the cohost of the weekend on msnbc. We also met up with john smith. At one point, he was the highest ranking black person in the trump white house, advising and negotiating with the ex president on policy positions around criminal Justice Reform, opportunity zones, and funding for historically black colleges and university. Is there any reason that in blackmon should find himself voting republican in the president ial election . I think theres a lot of reasons to vote republican. We have, for the first time, in my experience, a real platform that speaks to Black Americans. Everything from Economic Empowerment to affordability, to continue to do work on safe communities and Justice Reform. That Republican Party doesnt exist in my view right now. For the numbers, we both sat down with political pollster and strategist cornell belcher, a key adviser to Barack Obamas 2008 and 2012 campaigns. He is also a contributor for msnbc and nbc news. Men, overall, vote more republican than, women rebar regardless of it seems odd to a lot of people, given the loyalty that black people have for the Democratic Party to see blacks for trump. What does that say . I wouldnt say its a loyalty blacks half for the Democratic Party, but i think it is blacks making rational decisions based on how they see issues and the issue agenda. When you look at African Americans voting for trump, blacks are susceptible to just like white people are. How critical will the Blackmail Vote for democrats or republicans . How important are we as a block for what happens next . In a lot of Battleground States, it determines who wins or loses. On the court with Michael Steele and jarod smith, charles asked smith why he became republican in the first place. I saw that despite who was president , clearly i came up with the riots looking the same. I was like, what the Republican Party dont have is someone with my world view. I went out on this whole mission to like, look, if its a republican president , we need someon