Politics is a game of power. It is the process to determine who receives goods and services, as well as the dynamics that determine whose desires prevail. In this sense, Bill and Hillary Clinton are very competent and savvy politicians.

No doubt they have played the game well, and deluded many Black Americans into seeing them as benefactors and friends. This is achieved by superb acting and a sort of political sleight of hand that enables them to project an illusion that would be the envy of a magician in a circus side show.

When Bill Clinton became national news while campaigning for President of the United States in 1992, he seemed refreshingly different from the usual candidates with their time worn speeches and scripted responses, and his supposed affinity and empathy for Black Americans was played up for all it was worth.

He was even compared to martyred president John F. Kennedy and it was implied that (while meeting him as a youth) the gauntlet had been passed to him by the legendary president. Yet, Bill Clinton seemed a little too slickly packaged for me and I didn't buy that business that novelist Toni Morrison said about him being the first black president, no matter how many times he donned sun glasses and tried to play the sax.

Bill Clinton was elected President by winning the overwhelming majority of the Black and Hispanic vote and tipping the political scales in his favor. And I waited to see what Clinton would do for the Black and the Hispanic populations that where so pivotal in placing him in the White House. Yet, aside from the appointment of a few to token cabinet positions, I could see no genuine effort on his part to correct the basic inequity in American society, or to provide any lasting relief. In fact Clinton went about dismantling the social and economic welfare programs and safety nets that Reagan had attacked in the 1980's. He also signed into law a bill that had the effect of sending badly needed jobs overseas, an act that delivered a cruel blow to American industrial workers across the nation.

Then the 'White Water' and Monica Lewinski scandals hit the media. But this was not what was most disturbing to me. First there were the rumors circulating about the plane crash in Bosnia with former National Democratic Chairman and US Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown aboard. According to a military coroner, there was a hole in Ron Brown's head consistent with the size and shape of a bullet wound. The allegation was never investigated and soon fell from the national news screen.

Also troubling was when Bill Clinton signed into law Bills that toughened the penalties for selling or being in possession of "crack cocaine" (a drug associated with the urban poor and black) while not doing the same for powder cocaine (a form of drug more associated with the white and well to do).

Then there was the genocide in Rwanda in the spring of 1994. During this horrific crisis, President Clinton pretended (like the proverbial ostrich that stuck his head in the sand) that he was unaware of the mass killings taking place in the east African country. Incredibly, the man at the helm of the most powerful and information/ technology proficient nation on the face of the earth, claimed to be unaware of what is perhaps the most brutal and accelerated genocide in modern history.

Later, during the height of the Monica Lewinski scandal, President Clinton ordered missiles sorties fired into what he alleged was a terrorist camp in Sudan. Yet, upon investigation by respected journalists and international human rights organizations, it was proven that the hit was on a medicine factory. It was later rumored that Clinton had ordered the strike to divert attention away from his White house affair with Lewinski.

Meanwhile, his wife Hillary was pushing for a national health plan. Not an unreasonable project seeing that many countries have managed to have them and they are much poorer than the United States. But something happened and Hillary seemed to drop the project amidst rumors that she had been wooed by giant super wealthy medical insurance companies. This behavior is consistent with the opinions of people that have worked closely with Hillary over the years and who say she is very ambitious, ruthless and calculating.

Also, according to a book written by author Edward Klein, [1] contrary to the role of aggrieved wife that she played during the height of her husband's sex scandal, she had known of Bill's sexual escapades since the days when they were students at Harvard University and she seemed to accept his infidelity as an inevitable part of his personality. Later, as Bill's political star began to rise and as Hillary envisioned political power of her own, she began to see Bill's infidelities not in terms of the damage done to her marriage but in terms of the damage his scandalous affairs would have on her own political aspirations. For at some point Hillary decided that being the wife of a president was not enough; she longed to place the presidential crown upon her own head.

During her presidential campaign she (as she had in her bid for a senate seat) arrogantly considered a large Black/minority turn out for her at the polls as a given. This is not a strange sentiment when we examine the tradition of American politics as it pertains to Blacks and the expectations of so-called liberal candidates caught in the American political machine. Dr. Claude Anderson explains:

"Both White and Black candidates for public office, various political parties, and this nation, all get a free ride with Black voters. Black voters are led to believe there are two purposes to vote: 1) to elect the White candidate who is best able to lead and control resources or 2) to elect the Black candidate who is most deserving of a public job and personal recognition. The most we get is personal satisfaction that the candidate we supported won. We play politics just to play. Others play for the benefit of winning or being in the winner's circle. We often support campaign issues that do not benefit us. Blackness is excluded, but we hope that through some miraculous twinge of conscience, once in office the former candidate will offer us some spoils as supporters. We demand nothing and that is exactly what we get."

"Playing and winning in politics must be based on group self-interest, and not misplaced group loyalty and faithfulness. Black America's political agenda must be just as narrow and exclusive as White politics, Jewish politics, Hispanic politics, gay politics and women's politics. And just as other competing groups have elected officials who speak strictly for them, Black people ought to have elected officials who speak for Black people and practice the politics of gaining resources for Black people. The issue is not about getting along socially. With more than 9,000 Black elected officials in America, we are now in a position to practice the politics of getting ahead." [2]

With the improved communication that modern technology affords us in the way of the internet, cell phones, web-cams, email, faxes, etc., we should be able to organize our constituency into strategic voting blocks and be more adept at making our political agenda known to those who seek our votes, as well as be in a position to demand what we want and need in return.

We must develop an economic infrastructure to be used as a generator or as a political engine. From this we can educate and train lobbyists to apply the pressure and the oversight to ensure that our needs are being addressed and the requisite goods and services are delivered to our people.

We must also be in a position to penalize those politicians that renege on their promises and obligations toward us. This could be done by withholding any future political and financial support, and by a persistent effort to discredit them in our communities through rallies, articles in the Black press, the distribution of leaflets and bill boards, as well as advertisements in the electronic media.

Steven Malik Shelton is a journalist and human rights advocate. He can be reached at: malikshelton19@aol.com

Notes and References
[1] Edward Klein, "The Truth about Hillary," Penguin Group Publishers (2005)

[2] Claude Anderson, ED.D, "Powernomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America," Powernomics Corporation of America Publishers (2001)

© Mar. 2008 by Afro Staff