Check out this first in an ongoing series of vignettes by African People's Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela on the U.S. presidential candidacy of Barack Obama.

"When you talk about a presidential election where they're going to spend more than a billion dollars, a lot of forces with a whole bunch of money are promoting him for their own reasons. Not because of what's important to Africans, but because of what's important to this element of the ruling class.

"So he's important, because at this time of crisis, where you might be looking for revolution, where you might be willing to talk about overturning the system, he brings Africans back into the safe embrace of the Democratic Party."