Blacks urged to vote on issues

HAMPTON, Va. — African-American voters should judge Sen. Barack Obama and other 2008 presidential candidates on how they will handle issues affecting the African-American community and not on race, gender or ethnicity.

That was the message of several key speakers Saturday at the annual State of the Black Union symposium. The two-day conference offered an examination of the progress African Americans have made and the problems they still confront.

"I think the identity politics should not be based on race," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a 2004 presidential candidate. "It should be based on agenda and policy. Who stands for our best interests? We cannot put our people's aspirations on hold for anybody's career, black or white."

As the conversation at Saturday's session shifted from health care to education to politics, it quickly went to Obama, who formally kicked off his presidential candidacy Saturday in Springfield, Ill. Among the panelists were two black men who have run for president, Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Sharpton strongly urged the nearly 10,000 people who filled Hampton University's Convocation Center not to select a candidate next year just because they want to see an African American or a woman or a Hispanic in the White House for the first time.

Without naming Obama, Sharpton added that "just because you're our color doesn't make you our kind." He pointed to President Bush's secretaries of state, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, as examples of African Americans he said haven't necessarily worked in the interest of the black community.

Sharpton also chided Obama for making his presidential announcement in Springfield rather than before the predominantly black audience at Hampton and said he needs to declare "what's his embrace of our agenda."

Some people wonder whether Obama's mixed-race heritage dilutes his effectiveness on African-American issues. Others complain that he didn't earn his political stripes in the 1960s civil-rights movement. Still others wonder about his Ivy League education and upscale Chicago address.

Jackson, who ran twice for president, said Obama's heritage shouldn't be an issue. "Most of our forefathers were black, and most of our forefathers were white," he said.