“White guys” talk about women’s rights and raise more than $4 million for Kamala Harris

Over 190,000 people, including “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill and musician Josh Groban, attended a star-studded live video call on Monday night encouraging white men to support U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The event raised over $4 million for the campaign.

The three-hour-long “White Dudes for Harris” event focused on why and how white men should support Harris, the vice president, in his bid to defeat Republican opponent Donald Trump on November 5.

Over 60% of white men in the United States voted for Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, according to “Run for Something” founder and organizer Ross Morales Rocketto.

“If white guys would just show up, if we would stand up and be counted, if we would talk about what it really means to be a great partner, and a man, which is to protect, and to help, and to lift up, and to not push down, all of us are going to be better for it,” Mitch Landrieu, a co-chair of the Harris campaign phone conversation.

The video call for Harris is the most recent in a string of ones that have garnered significant attention and collected millions of dollars. The first one was organized by Black women the night before President Joe Biden withdrew from the race and supported Harris.

Other attendees were Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and actor Jeff Bridges, who attributed his call to his portrayal as “The Dude” in the iconic movie “The Big Lebowski.”

Actor Bradley Whitford, who starred in the critically acclaimed television series The West Wing and the film Get Out, remarked, “What a variety of whiteness we have here.” “The Dude is with us. Pete (Buttigieg) is ours. It resembles a beige rainbow.”

Speakers stressed the advantages of white men standing up for the rights of others, particularly women’s reproductive rights, which are a major campaign topic for Harris and the Democrats.

The pledges made by filmmaker J.J. Abrams and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman to match contributions made during the call resulted in over 60,000 individual contributions, according to Morales Rocketto.

Josh Gad, the actor from “Frozen,” pleaded with the crowd, “Smash that donate button.”

In the past, almost 40,000 people responded to a call for supporters of Black women. More than 50,000 people attended the one for Black men, while separate invitations were sent out for South Asian women and LGBTQ allies. A request for white ladies was answered by almost 200,000 people, raising over $11 million.