Brian Clardy feels strongly about his race and is appalled by the unfair treatment of African-Americans by the political system. He did not want to force his conservative views upon anyone. However, Clardy, a Black American Studies lecturer, did want to provide young African-Americans with a different way of addressing issues.

Clardy and Oladele Omosegbon, an assistant professor in Black American Studies, expressed their views toward liberalism during a symposium Monday in the Student Center. The symposium, titled Liberalism and Black America, was attended by about 30 people and sponsored by the Black Affairs Council.

Clardy, who favors the Republican party, argued that African-Americans fall into the wrong hands when voting for Democratic leaders. Liberals tend to guarantee the expansion of civil rights and liberties, which are often broken, Clardy said.

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Liberals are not taking the black vote seriously, he said. When the liberals come into to the black community, what are we going to do? Are we going to ask them the hard questions?

Neither party has anything on their agenda. But, it is apparent that Democrats did not have the best view of blacks, even though 90 percent of blacks vote Democrat.

While Clardy debated his opposition toward the Democratic system, Omosegbon, discussed his view of liberals and African-Americans.

He said liberals are for change and have more contact with African-Americans than conservatives.

If you have the choice between liberal and conservative, liberal is superior when you want to talk about Black America historically, he said.

Omosegbon used a Fortune 500 list to support his opinion that African-Americans are behind whites economically. He said when he scanned the list, the first African-American name appeared behind 200. Over the years, African-Americans have not gained as much as whites.

Some of the white men on the list inherited the money, he said. What did the African-American inherit from slavery?

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Darius Robinson, a graduate student in manufacturing systems engineering from East St. Louis, provided a valuable insight, although he remained neutral in the discussion.

Robinson feels that neither political party has the answer to the problems that exist with African-Americans. African-Americans do not need titles to work together effectively.

Black people need to change their behavior, he said. Are we just looking at a title? We need to analyze the structure. We have not come up with our own original method.

No one has the whole solution, he said. Why can’t we look at the whole situation, fuse the two philosophies together to get what is best for our people.

Clardy said that he does not expect everyone to accept his ideas but hopes people will consider them.

I hope that if they didn’t agree with my opinion that I got them to think about the issues, he said.