Ask the hard questions and demand answers 

Bruce Crawley
Tribune Columnist
A high school Latin teacher, Mr. Watters, took great pains to explain to our class one day the concept of a “Pyrrhic victory.” Apparently there was a king named Pyrrhus, who led his forces against the Romans in 280 B.C. Though Pyrrhus and his troops seemed to have won the battle, to his great dismay, he realized afterward that, in the process of “winning,” his army had been depleted and he had actually gained no military advantage. All he had been able to achieve was the “appearance” of victory, while suffering a disastrous loss.
The term “Pyrrhic victory” has been used since that time to describe similar “apparent victories” in business and in politics.
That brings us, about 2,300 years later, to the upcoming Democratic presidential primary elections.
With that process headed to Pennsylvania on April 22, now is as good a time as any to take steps to ensure that we don’t have, again, a situation wherein one of the candidates jubilantly wins while we, as Black voters, come away with no advantage and perhaps a disastrous loss for our community.
We as Black voters simply have not gotten the hang of what needs to be done as part of the political process to make government truly work for us.
As an example, there is evidence that we now have the greatest number of Black elected officials in this country that we have ever had, and yet our schools and neighborhoods are more racially segregated than they were prior to Brown vs. Board of Education and the Fair Housing laws. What’s more, the Black poverty rate exceeds 30 percent and unemployment, in our community, is rampant.
It’s not just Black elected officials who’ve failed us. White councilpersons, mayors, Congresspersons, senators and presidents have done no better. There can be no arguing that point. The evidence of our systematic exclusion from the economic mainstream is abundant.
Over the years of our involvement with the political process, we’ve tried everything except holding our elected officials accountable for delivering on a proposed agenda.
No, what we do instead is pick a party and we all register in that organization. Then we settle, somehow, on a candidate and we move in lockstep to support him/her. We wear their buttons, put posters in our windows, send supportive e-mails, go to their rallies, help them raise money, repeat their slogans and we get out the vote.
Unfortunately, the politicians know that the most loyal and dedicated voter is a Black voter. Once we make up our minds, and that’s usually early, they have to spend virtually nothing in our media outlets to persuade us and they don’t have to promise us a thing in return for our vote. 
 Am I making it up? In the last four general elections for president, Blacks gave 82 percent of their vote to Bill Clinton in 1992, 84 percent to Clinton in 1996, 90 percent of their vote to Al Gore in 2000, and 88 percent to John Kerry in 2004.
There’s no doubt that we are loyal. There is no more dependable Democratic voting bloc in this country than Black folks. We do way more than our part. 
At the same time, what we don’t do is ask the candidates directly how any of this is going to benefit us, and that makes it really easy for the candidate and for the party.
One theory I’ve heard a lot is that we don’t want to raise questions about a candidate’s stance on Black issues because we don’t want to risk losing their white voter support.
What? Are we kidding?
Does the Jewish community hesitate – ever – to ask candidates to take public positions on Israel? Do Hispanics hesitate to ask people who seek their vote to take positions on amnesty for illegal immigrants? Do Catholics hesitate to ask candidates to take an anti-abortion stance? Do any of them care whether other political factions will be offended?
“Let’s not create a problem, the candidates will take care of our issues after they get in.” That’s what we say. Regrettably, that has never happened.
Don’t we realize that if the candidate is pressured to “carve up the pie” by other groups before the election, that there won’t be any slices left for us when he/she finally gets in?
Maybe our overly submissive, “wait-our- turn-at the-back-of-the-bus attitude” in all of this can be explained as one of the last, unfortunate vestiges of slavery and “second-class citizenship.” Maybe we don’t yet feel entitled to what every other group of organized voters has come to expect from the political process.
My advice: Get over it. If the candidates don’t discuss our issues before the election, they never will.
It’s time, now, for us to decide what we need from the political process and to present those needs to both Obama and Clinton as they and their “armies” come to town. Don’t just go to the rallies, let’s sit down face-to-face with the candidates and their key operatives to talk honestly about how they plan to provide specific support for our community.
What’s the rush? There’s plenty of time for us to finally settle on “our” candidate. The elections are scheduled on April 22. Make them work for your vote. Let them make the commitments we need.
The same philosophy applies, of course, to all of the upcoming local elections and to each of the candidates who will be participating in them.
In a severely weakened economy, it’s the only smart approach to take.
We have had our share of “Pyrrhic victories.” Let’s finally win an election that will produce tangible benefits for our community.
A. Bruce Crawley is the principal owner of Millennium3Management, Inc., and the co-founder of Philadelphia’s African American Chamber of Commerce.