Cornel West, a long-shot unbiased presidential candidate, named Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter activist, as his working mate on Wednesday, cementing a novel ticket that includes two Black Ph.D.s whom he positioned as providing a stronger dedication to racial justice than each main events.
Ms. Abdullah, 51, is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and a professor of Pan-African Research at California State College in Los Angeles.
Mr. West, who has taught at a number of Ivy League universities and helped pioneer the sector of African American research, introduced his choice throughout “The Tavis Smiley Present,” a livestreamed discuss present.
Ms. Abdullah, who has by no means run for workplace earlier than, mentioned she was proud to be a part of an all-Black ticket and would proceed her position as an activist with Black Lives Matter.
“I’ll by no means step again from that,” she mentioned, although she identified that the group doesn’t endorse political candidates. “However the agenda, the Black Lives Matter agenda of ending state-sanctioned violence, proper, of constructing a world the place our youngsters and our folks can stay and stroll freely comes with me into this race.”
Mr. West shrugged off criticism that his left-wing candidacy, which is polling within the low single digits, might siphon off essential votes from President Biden in his rematch towards former President Donald J. Trump. He asserted that he and Ms. Abdullah, who’s Muslim, offered voters with a greater different.
“Trump is main the nation towards a second Civil Warfare,” Mr. West mentioned on the present. “Biden is main the world towards World Warfare III. That’s the selection you might have in the event you solely are tied to the duopoly.”
Mr. Biden’s marketing campaign referred a request for touch upon Wednesday to the Democratic Nationwide Committee, which forged doubts about Mr. West’s viability.
“Regardless of Cornel West saying a working mate, our view stays the identical: Solely two candidates have a path to 270 electoral votes, President Biden and Donald Trump,” Matt Corridoni, a spokesman for the D.N.C., mentioned in an e mail. “The stakes are excessive and we all know that is going to be an in depth election — that’s why a vote for any third-party candidate is a vote for Donald Trump.”
A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.
Mr. West mentioned on the livestream that he and Ms. Abdullah would use the marketing campaign to attract consideration to their battle for justice.
“We need to abolish police homicide, abolish police brutality,” he mentioned. “We need to abolish poverty. We need to abolish homelessness. We need to abolish this greed that we’ve seen organized on Wall Road and Pentagon and Silicon Valley.”
