Last night, I sat in on the White Dudes for Harris Zoom call, and let me tell you, it was just what I needed.
This essay actually started life a week ago as a call to arms for my fellow white dudes, but then Ross Morales Rocketto and Brad Bauman went ahead and did what I couldn’t do — they rallied the white dudes. (I’m not saying I manifested it, but…I totally manifested it. You’re welcome.)
Why does it matter if white dudes rally for Harris? Let me tell you…
Coincident with her endorsement from Joe Biden, Kamala Harris was the recipient of massive support from the Black community. Particularly from Black women. Within 24 hours, a 40,000-person-strong Zoom meeting (40,000 Black women, to be clear) kicked off an unprecedented fundraising drive that rivaled blockbuster Hollywood release weekends.
Shortly thereafter, Black men stepped up.
And then there was a Latinos for Harris Zoom, too.
And Shannon Watts — of Moms Demand Action fame — has taken on the work of organizing white women to support Kamala Harris in her run against Donald Trump, trying to avoid the patterns of the past, where white women have voted against their own enlightened self-interest.
You see what was missing, of course.
You see what no one was even talking about.
Until last night, white men weren’t even part of the conversation.
Not even brought us up as a joke.
The white male vote is, in the main, considered to be intractably, irretrievably racist and misogynist and therefore not worth pursuing. And it pisses me off because it’s TRUE.
Here’s an example, a map that quantifies the 2016 election if it were held under 1850 voting rules — in other words, what if only white men could vote?
Jesus H. Christ.
So, yeah, I understand why no one was talking about rallying the white male vote. I get it.
Some of this is embedded in one of the core prejudices of our culture: The notion that “white male” is somehow the default, and everything else is a variant of that whiteness and maleness. Therefore, there is no need for “White Men for Harris” because of course the default Kamala voter is a white male. All of these other people are just different iterations on that.
I don’t have to explain how problematic this idea is. Nor how it ironically takes the ubiquity of white men and metamorphoses it into invisibility. If white men do not stand up and be counted for Kamala Harris, then it is as if we have sat this one out.
But last night, the conversation started. More than 150,000 white dudes on a Zoom call, raising more than $4,000,000 to make a woman of color our next president. So this is a clarion call to the white dudes who weren’t on the call, to the white dudes wondering what their place is in this election.
We need to use our voices, our visibility, our inevitability, and — yes — our privilege to support and uplift Kamala Harris and whomever she chooses as her running mate.
I get it: “White Dudes for Harris” sounds…odd. Fraught. Maybe even dangerous, in a way. White men are the target of identity politics, so using the tactics of identity politics feels off. But there is nothing racist or insensitive or problematic about a factual statement like “I am a white man and I support Kamala Harris.”
Men are often accused of mansplaining, of being the “well, actually” guy. I will court controversy here by stating that sometimes it’s really valuable to have someone offer up a reality check or correct the record. But that’s not our role here, guys. Our role is to donate, to vote. But as important, our role is to be visible white male faces enthusiastically on the side of Team Harris.
This isn’t virtue signaling. You’re not doing this so that Black people won’t think you’re racist or so that women will want to bang you. You’re not doing it for them.
You’re doing it for our misguided brothers who think that being white and male is a punched ticket to being anti-woman, anti-minority, anti-progress. So that young white boys and men across the country see the support this woman of color has from people who look like them and come to understand that women and people of color are not “other,” are not threats. If you stand up for Vice-President Harris, others will, too.
Our motto can be, “Well, actually, I’m voting for her.” Put it on a sign.
Because when Harris smacks the living shit out of that rapist, perverted, incestuous, child-molesting creep that you know you wouldn’t let within a hundred yards of your wife or your daughter or your sister, she won’t just be the president of Black women or Indian women.
She’ll be your president, too. And you can be proud of helping to get her there.
If the last few decades of identity politics have taught us anything at all, it’s this: Representation matters. Represent the version of the white man you want to see in the world.
This means when you’re at the sports bar…or the comic book store…or the golf course…or wherever…and you hear someone running down Kamala Harris, you stand up and you say you’re voting for her. And not just voting for her, but doing so happily and with vigor.
None of this “Well, I guess she’s the lesser of two evils…” or “I’d really rather have Gavin Newsome…” Fuck that noise. You are a Kamala Harris voter. You are a white man proudly voting for a woman of color.
Ask yourself this: Do you want the representatives of white maleness in the prevailing national narrative to be Donald Trump and Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino and Elon Musk and Andrew Tate? Or do you want the representatives to be the hundreds of thousands — dare I say millions? — of ordinary white men who believe in progress and equality and a future in which race and gender and creed and sexuality are no mean impediment to advancement, fulfillment, and happiness?
Joe Biden served in a secondary role to a Black man for eight years in the most public way possible. When it was time to step aside, he gave his full-throated endorsement to a woman of color. Joe Biden might just be the most important white male ally in history.
Be like Amtrak Joe. Be humble. Be certain. Be supportive. And give no quarter.
Now, as they said last night on the call, go donate until it feels good. Then donate until it hurts. And then keep going until it feels good again.
And fucking vote.