By AL CALLOWAY

The political reality for African Americans is bigger than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It is about appearances versus reality, not personality or political party and not about what a politician says. Political reality is quite simple and very clear. It is an exchange or barter. Your vote gives you access to all the powers of elected officials, and, collectively, all voters are the electorate – the most powerful group in a democracy, if organized.

African Americans as a block of electors are being systematically misled from within by so-called civil rights poverticians, black and white politicians and some preachers. Pulling those puppet strings are Hillary and Trump’s rich and powerful friends from Wall Street in New York and K Street in Washington, D.C. All ensure that African Americans, along with other “groups of color,” do not understand their power and will not pose a threat to the status quo if kept from being organized.

Take the blinders off your eyes. Just look at recent tragic events in black America. Magically, money appears for stages and microphones, permits for rallies and marches and black speakers from across the nation. Television, radio and print media always blanket the event and always manage to get Sharpton, Morial of the Urban League and whomever is the current head of the failing NAACP on the air and in the papers.

That is nothing more than theater in the streets, folks. National black leaders are sent to these locations to make certain that locals let some steam out and the politics of containment is maintained. The status quo is kept in order with meetings downtown which gives local black politicians and preachers visibility along side of the national black figures. In short shrift the issue fades from view and is all but forgotten, and when curiously revisited, little, if any, positive change has occurred.

There is a factor of strength and resolve lying dormant in black people throughout the Americas. Understand, people, you are descendents of those who survived the hellish Middle Passage. You are the strongest of the strong! And an area of reparations yet unleashed is in the simple research of your last name, which is the last name of your forebears “owner” during slavery. Get organized and get paid!

Please focus on the politics of access. All politics is local. That is where African Americans can begin to mobilize neighborhood by neighborhood – from house to house and street by street. Organize! A Primary Election was just held and as in the last few primaries, only approximately ten percent of the black electorate bothered to vote. Now is a good time to remedy that and also get access.

There is both a quantitative and qualitative difference between sending a black elected official to a School Board, City Hall, County Commission, State Legislature or Congress with a mere ten percent of a voting district than with sixty or eighty percent. People at all levels of the political system are aware that a larger active constituency means a larger number present when needed or letters, emails, and/or phone calls. Numbers mean power and power translates into more access.

It is a travesty in Fort Lauderdale that some black politicians spent time concocting a silly – yet potentially dangerous – name for themselves as “The Sistrunk Mafia.” As a person that went to school with Sicilians in New York and am familiar with their culture, I suggest the following: desist forthwith. Do not deal with what you do not understand. You very well may be disrespecting . . .

Having learned what Fort Lauderdale black politicians are apparently up to is, indeed, disappointing. We may need to learn more about them, look at them more closely – check the record since being in office. Could any of them possibly be gangsters or crooks? Have any of them turned their backs while others stole from the people? What has any of this so-called Mafia accomplished since being in public office?

There are multiple reasons why we need the Politics of Access.