Ernie’s in the Cut is much more than a barbershop. You can tell from the moment you walk inside.
Ernest Hood — the shop’s owner — is usually spinning records.
Luther Vandross, Blackstarr, Fela Kuti — he pulls from a personal archive that you’ll notice decorates the walls.
Between the vinyl, you’ll find art from Hood and the rest of his community in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward.
“It’s home base for all things dope, artistic and creative,” Hood describes his shop — the “grooming gallery.”
Every week he hosts Wayback Wednesday, an organic space for folks to chill and chat. Recently, Hood and his crew have been talking about the November election.
“We got two 80-something year old white cats to choose from,” Hood said, starting conversation the night before President Joe Biden debated former President Donald Trump. “This is like real plantation mode for me.”
Both campaigns had been reaching out to Black men in Georgia.
Biden delivered the commencement address at Morehouse graduation in May.
The following month, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Atlanta to speak at a conference of Black men. She was back in less than a week to speak at a conference hosted by Quavo, one-third of the iconic Atlanta trap group Migos.
Republicans have also sponsored multiple events to reach Black men. One took place at a cigar bar, another at a barbershop.
Trump was in Atlanta himself a few months ago and stopped by the Chick-fil-A in the West End.
Hood paralleled that visit to one of Biden’s campaign ads, where he eats fried chicken with a Black father and his sons.
In sum, Hood distilled these junctures on the campaign trail to political “pandering.”
For Javon Lee — a regular at Wayback Wednesday — that pandering was on full display by debate night.
“I didn’t feel like it was constructive at all,” Lee reflected. “It felt like two young jocks arguing with each other… It didn’t feel serious.”
Lee said the debate also underscored a more existential disappointment with our national outlook.
“If you look at it in totality, it’s not even meant for us,” he continued; by “us,” he means Black folks. “It almost makes you doubtful — unhopeful that anything could actually happen.”
Devron Barrett — another Ernie’s mainstay — felt the same.
Harris replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket did not sway that feeling.
For Barrett, federal politics are “political theater.” That’s why he only votes locally.
Barrett also said that he does not feel represented by Harris, a former California attorney general.
And his disillusion goes further.
Barrett pointed to a clip created by the then Biden-Harris campaign: a chat between actress Taraji P. Henson and Harris.
“These extremists, as they say, they not like us,” Harris tells Henson in the video.
The line is an homage to Kendrick Lamar’s viral diss track, “Not Like Us.”
“She ain’t like me,” Barrett said bluntly.
Though Barrett and Harris are both Black, he said her record as a prosecutor shows that she’s not part of his community.
Barrett added that no matter who has been president, he’s always felt the weight of being Black in America.
He quoted James Baldwin: “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
“If you’re Black in America, you understand exactly what he means by that,” Barrett finished. “Because it’s always something.”
Hood and Lee know the same feeling as “survival mode.” And they don’t know if voting in November will fundamentally change anything.
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