I had given zero thought to this before reading that NYT article but when I did, intuitively it made sense to me. I don’t know if I can articulate. Younger Black men are more liable than whites of any age cohort to have had run-ins with the law, and since they’re still out and still voters, they haven’t lost their civil rights. Their contacts would be for misdemeanors, “bullshit”, they are more likely to feel harassed, and that’s Trump’s defense. Trump’s lawyers likely also feel that younger Black males are rebels, rebels for the sake of being rebels. That is Trump, too. Older Black people of both genders are no-nonsense, if-you-do-the-crime-you-do-the-time, upstanding citizens. That’s not Trump’s jury. Especially not older Black women. They have had their fill of younger, Black male “rebels”. Rebels don’t engender any sympathy from Black mothers and grandmothers. One racial, demographic cohort you do NOT want to get sideways with is mature Black women. That’s the stereotype.
White working-class men is easier to understand. More likely not to be college educated, and that’s a Trumpie group. They understand the allure of sex, they go or have gone to strip clubs, maybe paid a hooker in their time. If they had Trump’s money, they’d do the same thing!
These are all stereotypes, folks, they’re offensive, but that is what Trump’s lawyers are doing, that is what both sets of lawyers are doing. That is what jury selection is. One question I asked frequently was, "Do any of you want to be on this jury?" Most of the time, I didn't want people who wanted to serve. Do they have an agenda? Jury selection is more deselection than selection. You can’t, and are not permitted to, get to know the prospective jurors individually. You have to go with the unspoken, how they answer, whether they seem to like one lawyer better than another, what their body language is, whether they’re eager to answer, whether they’re attentive, and you make generalizations from types to the individual and deselect based on the little you know and on feel.
