Black America and its so-called leadership must harness this voting power by organizing an independent political party or interest group that can make demands for Blacks and other minorities, especially Hispanics, or face further future dissension and degradation from white America simply for our inability to take action when opportunity presents itself.

In times past mainstream Black leaders and celebrities have worked vigorously to bring the Black community to the voting booths, but with little effect. This time, however, when an electable Black man runs for the highest office in the land, little or almost no effort was needed to draw Blacks to the polls. Why? Because Black America knows what it wants without being told, and this should be an awakening and action agenda for Black political strategist.

The persona of Barak Obama testifies to the type leadership Black America desires; one who is well-spoken, reasonable, racially untainted, and liked by people across all social/economic lines. Someone who can take the inspiration of King with the genuineness of Malcolm X, and the charisma of John F. Kennedy, and role it into one voice for Blacks in America. Despite the smears of white America and the dirty politics, and or course the liberal stance Barak has taken, the persona alone has done for Black politics in one year what a wide array of Black leaders have been trying to do for the last 50 years; unite Black America on one accord.

In droves, Blacks have come out and voted, spoken up, supported and stood behind one man. Though it has been done in the past when Blacks vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, never have this many blacks voted at any one time. Record-breaking numbers of Black voters have voted in the 2008 primaries, regardless of age, gender, or social/economic background. The pundits will refute the facts by dividing the demographics, but the truth continues to spill throughout the primaries.

Once the elections are done, and even if Obama does not win, Black leaders from this point on should look deeply at the numbers, patterns, and trends and seriously reconsider their strategy for the Black vote and its negotiating power. If Blacks can turn out enough voters to sway an election, we most certainly have enough swaying power to effect other elections and even make demands if an agenda is in place. This writing on the wall is a message to Black leadership - who consider themselves political experts of Black America - that Black America has enough clout to draw votes away from parties or toward either party, Dems, and Republicans, and throw their vote behind an independent Black candidate in an independent minority party.

If Black leadership were smart, they would use this power to their advantage and to the advantage of all other minorities especially Hispanics, by organizing an independent party or interest group that will negotiate demands with congress. However, if they continue to slothfully follow the Democratic Party after 2008, divided and socially split, they will soon find it hard to gather Blacks together again for the next election and they will have shown and proven themselves to be ineffective Black leaders with only an interest in themselves and themselves alone. Because if they cannot or will not harness this power that has recently revealed itself to us, they do not truly have the Black community's interest at heart, but their own self-centered mainstream interest and profile.

If the current mainstream Black leaders do not take action, Afromerica will rise higher in the public mainstream by launching a campaign to bring down each individual Black so-called leader and expose their inadequacies for what they truly are; self-centered campaigns of mainstream profiling.

Tune in to Black News Radio with CR Hamilton Tuesdays at 9am (recorded afterward) for the solutions.

© Mar. 2008 By CR Hamilton