There is a lot at risk for our communities in the 2024 presidential election, from access to the ballot box to reproductive justice to financial support for Black farmers.
Borrowing a page from their Republican rivals’ book, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have framed the contest as a battle for freedom.
In a CNN special broadcasting at 9 p.m. ET today, Harris and Walz will appear in their first major television interview since their lightning-fast bid for the White House began.
The special will air from Georgia, where Harris and Walz are on a two-day bus tour in the southeast corner of the crucial swing state, and it will give voters an opportunity to hear the two Democrats answer questions about their policy vision for the country.
Whether the interview will directly address Black voters’ top concerns is anyone’s guess. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of some of the questions that you, our readers, would ask Harris and Walz — a list of what you’re hoping the duo will talk about.
Here are 10 of the best responses:
- How will you protect voting rights?
- What are your plans for student loan forgiveness?
- Our housing situations, from purchasing to repairs, are huge problems. You stated that you will provide $25,000 (to new homebuyers). Will this include everyone, or just families?
- What, if anything, are you planning to do to address the school-to-prison pipeline?
- Why was not a single Palestinian representative allowed to speak (at the Democratic National Convention)?
- What is your vision for a fair and just criminal justice system? And how would you balance the need to hold violent criminals accountable and ensure justice for victims, with the reality that our current system disproportionately harms people of color and (most) often fails to reduce recidivism?
- There has been the development of “cop cities” or designated training grounds for police to train in “urban warfare.” Given your record and career in criminal justice, do you see the need for such institutions that essentially are designed to form a police state? Are you concerned about the steep environmental, social, and racial implications of building cop cities?
- What are your thoughts on expanding the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline to include peer counselors in the community who can respond in person, or incorporate postpartum doulas?
- Will you do an interview on a Black news media station?
- How can an 88-year-old Black farmer, who plowed up their own cotton, be denied financial assistance under the recent $2.2 billion discrimination program that participated in the (Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933), which the U.S. Supreme Court said is unconstitutional?
