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Like millions of other Americans, I had the pleasure of watching the heavyweight match between Clinton and Obama Thursday night. For the most part, I was quite impressed with both candidates. Obama was astute and had great responses to most of the questions. Clinton displayed professionalism and determination, something we need for a potential president. In fact, emotional weakness was completely absent from her demeanor. There was one aspect of it that annoyed me to no end. Is Hillary Clinton desperately trying to appease blacks? Below is part of a CNN Transcript of the debate where the issue of immigration and its effects on African-Americans was brought up.

This is from Kim Millman (ph) from Burnsville, Minnesota. And she says, “there’s been no acknowledgement by any of the presidential candidates of the negative economic impact of immigration on the African-American community. How do you propose to address the high unemployment rates and the declining wages in the African-American community that are related to the flood of immigrant labor?”

Take note, the focus was immigration, not illegal immigrants specifically. Why am I highlighting this? Keep reading.

Senator Obama, you want to go first on that? And it’s for both of you.

OBAMA: Well, let me first of all say that I have worked on the streets of Chicago as an organizer with people who have been laid off from steel plants, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and, you know, all of them are feeling economically insecure right now, and they have been for many years. Before the latest round of immigrants showed up, you had huge unemployment rates among African-American youth.

And, so, I think to suggest somehow that the problem that we’re seeing in inner-city unemployment, for example, is attributable to immigrants, I think, is a case of scapegoating that I do not believe in, I do not subscribe to.

This is a true statement. We can’t blame immigration for unemployment among African-Americans. To do so is nothing more than racist scapegoating. Besides, Obama is the son of an immigrant. I’m sure the question was a catch-22 for him. Whatever the case, he gave the “correct” and sensible answer.

OBAMA: I believe that we can be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.

But let’s understand more broadly that the economic problems that African-Americans are experiencing, whites are experiences, blacks and Latinos are experiencing in this country are all rooted in the fact that we have had an economy out of balance. We’ve had tax cuts that went up instead of down. We have had a lack of investment in basic infrastructure in this country. Our education system is chronically underfunded.

And so, there are a whole host of reasons why we have not been generating the kinds of jobs that we are generating. We should not use immigration as a tactic to divide. Instead, we should pull the country together to get this economy back on track.

That’s what I intend to do as president of the United States of America.

Why?

CLINTON: Well, let me start with the original question from Kim, because I think it deserves an answer.

I believe that in many parts of our country, because of employers who exploit undocumented workers and drive down wages, there are job losses. And I think we should be honest about that.

There are people who have been pushed out of jobs and factories and meat processing plants, and all kinds of settings. And I meet them.

You know, I was in Atlanta last night, and an African-American man said to me, “I used to have a lot of construction jobs, and now it just seems like the only people who get them anymore are people who are here without documentation.“ So, I know that what we have to do is to bring our country together to have a comprehensive immigration reform solution.

That is the answer. And it is important that we make clear to Kim and people who are worried about this that that is actually in the best interests of those who are concerned about losing their jobs or already have.

Because if we can tighten our borders, if we can crack down on employer who exploit workers, both those who are undocumented and those who are here as citizens, or legal, if we can do more to help local communities cope with the cost that they often have to contend with, if we do more to help our friends to the south create more jobs for their own people, and if we take what we know to be the realities that we confront — 12 to 14 million people here, what will we do with them?

Before I go on, let me remind you about the issue that voter Kim Millman actually brought up:

“there’s been no acknowledgement by any of the presidential candidates of the negative economic impact of immigration on the African-American community.

The statement wasn’t about illegal immigration or undocumented workers…it was about immigration in general. How interesting that Clinton did not address the real issue. I believe this is nothing more than an attempt to pacify black voters which is very pretentious on her part. She cannot possibly believe that immigration has ANYTHING to do with unemployement among blacks. As a black woman myself, I can see that such line of thinking is nothing but divisive and hypocritical for a black person to hold. Why can’t she see the same as a white woman? Wait, I believe she does see it. The delimma is, she needs the black vote. She will obviously do anything to get it. That would include not saying what she knows is the truth.