I missed it but thanks to the New York Times I was able to get an “unbiased” recap of the presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton’s appearence on BET last night. In a half-hour news program tailored for the candidate entitled “What’s in it for us? Hillary Clinton and the Black vote.”

During the segment, which aired adjacent to the MSNBC live debate (which I did catch,) Clinton was interviewed by Jeff Johnson about why African-Americans voters should choose her over Obama. Clinton was careful to note that she hopes race and gender don’t become the defining issues of the campaign.

Clinton was asked about her residual traction with black voters because of her connection with her husband and whether the fact that some politicos have sarcastically labeled him the “first black president” is offensive to African-Americans.

“Oh, I don’t think I’d be offended,” she said. “I think it was, you know, meant in a good sense that Bill has, you know, such deep and lasting ties with the African-American community. I look forward to seeing an African American president, and I know that people in the African-American community are faced with a very difficult choice. And I respect that, because isn’t it a wonderful chance that we have to have such extraordinary candidates running on the Democratic side.”

When asked about why the Republican party, not the Democrats featured the first black secretary of state and national security adviser, Clinton dodged the question while taking shots by saying :

And you know, for me it is somewhat intriguing that Colin Powell and Condi Rice have these jobs while African-American incomes went down, disparities between the rich and the poor grew wider, while we had more and more uninsured people disproportionately people of color, schools were put under this tremendous, unfunded mandate of No Child Left Behind and the dropout rate went up, so it shouldn’t be either or.

Admittedly I’m very undecided between the candidates. I think this election more than any in my lifetime, well voting lifetime requires voters to really do their research on the candidate’s voting records and platforms. I will have to do so very soon as the Primaries are fast approaching. I encourage all of you haven’t already done so, to do the same.