Cornel West Has Just Announced His Vice-Presidential Pick

No, it isn’t Rashida Tlaib. Nor Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. West wanted to stay true to his melanic roots, with an all-black ticket. He even chose to announce his choice on the radio show of Tavis Smiley, a black man who, to judge by his programs, has no other subject than “being black in America.” Tavis and Cornel go way back. They used to do a radio show together, “Smiley and West,” which they describe as a “fusion of thought provoking, intelligent and stimulating dialogue on every subject.” I’ve listened to that show, and I beg to differ. It put me in mind, rather, of Beavis and Butthead. In 2012 Tavis and Cornel went on a “Poverty Tour” of America to promote their book The Rich and the Rest of Us. The stated aim of their tour was to “highlight the plight of the poor in the United States.” And also, of course, to sell books. Lots and lots of books. No one noticed their tour, then or now. But they’ve both done quite well for themselves. Tavis Smiley has been fired from several jobs in the media. PBS suspended him for “sexual misconduct” in the workplace “after learning of troubling allegations regarding Mr. Smiley” and after an investigation “uncovered multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS.” Smiley denied all the charges, sued PBS for wrongful discharge, and lost. He was ordered to pay PBS $2.8 million. Somehow, he still managed to land on his feet. He now has his own radio show again, and his net worth is between $4 and $10 million.

Cornel West resigned from Harvard after President Larry Summers suggested that West ought to keep him, Summers, abreast of his scholarly work, and wondered why West had cancelled so many of his classes; West — enraged that anyone should have the gall to question him — resigned in fury but ended up with a professorship at Princeton. Now he’s off to pastures new, as a professor at Union Theological Seminary.

Cornel West’s choice for running mate is Melina Abdullah, a black woman, a member of the board of Black Lives Matter Grassroots, a professor of pan-African Studies, and a convert to Islam. More on Abdullah can be found here: “Cornel West announces fellow academic Melina Abdullah as running mate,” by Aaron Pellish, CNN, April 10, 2024:

Independent presidential candidate Cornel West announced fellow academic Melina Abdullah as his vice presidential nominee in an interview Wednesday on “The Tavis Smiley Show.”

“She has a record of deep commitment and investment in ensuring that poor and working people are at the center of her vision,” West said of his running mate. “I wanted to run with someone who would put a smile on the face of Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King Jr. from the grave.”

West’s selection of Abdullah, a Muslim black woman and a member of the board of directors for Black Lives Matter Grassroots, could further advance his outreach to Muslim Americans and Black Americans disenchanted with President Joe Biden.

A pan-African studies professor at California State University, Los Angeles, Abdullah said she enthusiastically agreed to join West’s campaign and was drawn to his platform of “truth, love and justice.”

Yes, that’s exactly what I think of whenever Cornel West is mentioned: “truth, love, and justice.”

“I regard (West), and many of us regard him as one of the most brilliant people to walk this earth, and so I’ve been following him and had been really enthusiastic about his candidacy,” Abdullah said on Smiley’s show shortly after she was announced as West’s running mate.

Yes, according to Cornel West himself — and who knows Cornel West better than Cornel West? — he is quite the Renaissance man. He is “an American philosopher, theologian, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. In 2020, he was listed by Prospect magazine as the fourth-greatest thinker for the COVID-19 era.”

But let’s not stop there. Cornel West thinks you may want to know even more about him, so he has provided more detail here:

New York Times best-selling author Cornel West is one of America’s most provocative and admired public intellectuals. Whether in the classroom, the streets, the prisons, or the church, Dr. West’s penetrating brilliance has been a bright beacon shining through the darkness for decades.

Yet, as he points out in this new memoir, “I’ve never taken the time to focus on the inner dynamics of the dark precincts of my soul.” That is, until now. Brother West is like its author: brilliant, unapologetic, full of passion, yet cool. This poignant memoir traces West’s transformation from a schoolyard Robin Hood into a progressive cultural icon.

From his youthful investigation of the “death shudder” to why he embraced his calling of teaching over preaching, from his three marriages and his two precious children to his near-fatal bout with prostate cancer, West illuminates what it means to live as “an aspiring bluesman in a world of ideas and a jazzman in the life of the mind.”

But now let’s return to Melina Abdullah and how she reacted when Cornel West popped The Question: Melina, will you run with me?

 “He and his wife, Annahita, asked and immediately my heart just soared,” she said. “I said ‘yes’ immediately. Like, shouted ‘yes.’”…

Do I detect someone just one ‘Yes” short of being a 21st century Molly Bloom?

Abdullah, who was raised Baptist, said she believes her religious background ties into the core themes of West’s campaign.

“People of faith all want the same thing. We want peace, we want truth, we want love, and we want justice,” she said.

She’s a convert to Islam. And I am sure you will agree that when you hear the words “convert to Islam,” you are put immediately in mind of peace, of truth, of love, of justice.

Melina Abdullah has had quite a charmed career. She is a full professor of pan-African studies, and a former chairman of the department at California State University, yet she has not written a book. Indeed, her publications apparently consist of three slim papers and one short chapter in a book. For one of those papers and the short book chapter, Abdullah is only a coauthor. In other words, she has by herself written only two papers, for a grand total of 21 pages. Think of it: Tenure, a professorship, a department head, and for god’s sake, it took only 21 pages!

Here is her list of publications:

• Abdullah, Melina. “The emergence of a black feminist leadership model: African-American women and political activism in the nineteenth century.” Black women’s intellectual traditions: Speaking their minds (2007): 328–345.
• Abdullah, Melina, and Regina Freer. “Bass to bass: Relative freedom and womanist leadership in Black Los Angeles.” Black Los Angeles (2010).[[a chapter in a book that has 21 contributors]
• Abdullah, Melina, and Freer, Regina. 2008. “Towards a Womanist Leadership Praxis: The History and Promise of Black Grassroots/Electoral Partnerships in California.”In Racial and Ethnic Politics in California: Continuity and Change, edited by Cain, Bruce and Bass, Sandra, 95–118.[
• Abdullah, Melina. “What the Black Lives Matter Movement Demands of Ethnic Studies Scholars.” Ethnic Studies Review 37.1 (2014): 5–9.

Well, at least Ms. Abdullah may have coined, or at least co-coined with co-author Regina Freer, a new word — “womanist.” As in “womanist leadership praxis.” No, I haven’t the faintest idea what that means. Nor, I suspect, does she.

West, despite his pronounced diastema and, some have been cruel enough to suggest, his megalomania, should stir up the race, in every sense. For connoisseurs of idiocy, there will be a lot to appreciate from now until November, between Biden, Trump, and now Cornel West, the American philosopher, theologian, political activist, social critic, actor, public intellectual, and now presidential candidate, who, let’s remember, in 2020 was listed by Prospect magazine as “the fourth-greatest thinker for the COVID-19 era.” His “penetrating brilliance has been a bright beacon shining through the darkness for decades” — he says so himself — so perhaps he is the right man after all. You know, Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Loopy, loony, ludicrous he may be, but there are those who like that sort of thing in their leader. What rough beast, his hour come round at last, slouches toward Palestine to be born? Why, it’s Professor CORNEL WEST.