One aunt said something my mother said to me nearly a year ago. That it’s going to take a white man to straighten out the mess we’re in. “The way the system is set up now, there is so much racism that it’s going to have to be an old white person to go after an old white person,” my aunt told me. “Old-school against old-school.” She talked further about what this meant for younger candidates such as Buttigieg. “The whole world is in a crazy state, and somebody’s gotta put it back in order. And I think a lot of the young people who want to put it back in order, want to change it completely,” she continued. “But first, you’ve got to put it back in order before you can start changing it.”

Now get this. Before saying all that about Biden, guess who my aunt’s favorite candidate is in the Democratic field? Harris. Yet, my aunt, like everyone else at the barbecue, thought that Biden was the one who could beat President Trump. She thought this not only because the former California attorney general and former San Francisco district attorney is not “an old white person,” but also because Harris is a woman. “Nobody is going to vote for a woman,” said another female relative. “They didn’t vote for Hillary [Clinton]. … Hillary didn’t win. If she were a man, she would have won.”

Another relative put it this way. “I’m not concerned about color. I’m not worried about [the nominee being] a woman,” she said. “My concern is for the country.” She and others want a fighter, someone to take on Trump, who they all think is ruining the nation. But a caution for Harris and the other Democrats is that these folks do not like the candidates taking on each other.