Not Your Ordinary Candidate – Jared Ball
Forget everything that you know about a traditional presidential campaign. Imagine a campaign that is led by a candidate that you could more closely identify with – such as another proud member of the hip-hop generation.
How about someone who could quote Public Enemy or KRS-One during a public speech or debate, while also pledging a platform to represent the best interests of the hip-hop community? Maybe even a candidate that shares a campaign stage with progressive underground hip-hop artists? Sound interesting? Well, meet Jared Ball.
Who Is Jared Ball?
Jared Ball is a professor at Morgan State University, an activist and independent journalist for various publications, a radio host of a political hip-hop show on WPFW 89.3 FM in D.C., the Editor-at-Large of the Words, Beats and Life Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, and the founder of FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show.
In addition, he has a bachelor’s degree in History from Frostburg State University, a master’s degree in Africana Studies from Cornell University, and a doctorate in Journalism & Media Studies from the University of Maryland. Dr. Ball is a navy veteran of Desert Shield and Desert Storm, as well as a proud husband and father of two. Oh yeah – and Jared Ball is a Green Party candidate for President of the United States.
Not your ordinary presidential candidate, Jared Ball is a diehard hip-hop fan. Dr. Ball grew up immersed in hip-hop culture and is said to have found his direction and motivation from listening to those hip-hop legends that united the community with a common message of social justice. To this day, hip-hop remains a central focus of Dr. Ball’s life. He is a key voice in the progressive movement to inform, educate, and motivate today’s hip-hop generation – to stand up and fight for the issues that impact our communities through print, radio, internet, public speaking, and about any other format he can find.
One of Dr. Ball’s most interesting hip-hop projects to date is his FreeMix Radio creation – a free monthly hip-hop mixtape with an objective to encourage the development of the “format and network as a source of 21st century emancipatory journalism.”
What Are Jared Ball’s Political Positions?
Politically, Dr. Ball has pledged to uphold the Green Party’s platform as he campaigns to win the party’s nomination. The Green Party currently lists six approved presidential candidates for the party’s nomination, including Jared Ball, Jessie Johnson, Cynthia McKinney, Kent Mesplay, and Kat Swift, as well as Ralph Nader as a draft candidate.
The Green Party’s 10 Key Values are as follows: Grassroots Democracy, Social Justice, Ecological Wisdom, Non-violence, Decentralization, Community-based Economics, Feminism, Diversity, Responsibility, and Future Focus.
Even though Jared Ball has committed to the issues of the Green Party, he also has his own platform which supports the party’s 10 Key Values while addressing many issues of vital importance to the hip-hop generation. Some of Dr. Ball’s personal platform and issues include:
- “increasing Green Party membership among the Indigenous, Black and Latino communities” by conducting a street level campaign in these communities across the nation;
- a redistribution of the country’s wealth to deal with various social issues such as health care, housing, employment, and education – effectively ending the rich get richer / poor get poorer system that we live in;
- confronting numerous issues of racial inequity, such as “political prisoners, police brutality and the prison industrial complex”;
- an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq with a redeployment to areas of our country in desperate need of redevelopment, such as New Orleans;
- and a strong fight for media justice by revoking the Telecommunications Act of 1996, ending payola and play lists in media outlets, and enforcing “public service requirements for FCC license-holders, including the creation of reporting staffs at major commercial radio targeting Black and Latin America.”
How Is Jared Ball Campaigning?
The most interesting aspect of Jared Ball’s run for the White House, from a hip-hop perspective, is his unique style of campaigning. Over the next week alone and on top of a few fundraisers, Dr. Ball will be presenting his “Capitol Resistance: Hip-Hop as Mass Media” lecture and show during three separate events in California:
- The Kate Buchanan Room in Arcata on 12/12
- The S.L.O. Senior Center in San Louis Opisbo on 12/17
- The L.A. Peace Center near Crescent Heights on 12/19
What you will find at these Green Party hosted campaign events that you will not find anywhere else is an underground hip-hop artist sharing the stage with a presidential candidate.
Widely known as the “Mayor of D.C. Hip-Hop,” underground artist Head-Roc will be performing at each event along with DJ 2-Tone Jones. Head-Roc is a highly acclaimed independent emcee and producer that has built a successful career around creating music that has been described as inspiring “many to rethink and utilize hip-hop’s potential for achieving social change” and he has been an unwavering voice for this political movement for years. As an example of how closely Dr. Ball ties hip-hop and politics together, Head-Roc is officially a co-manager of his presidential campaign.
Our Next President?
So, will Jared Ball be our next President? Absolutely not. And Dr. Ball is the first person to understand this, as he points out that he is “not expecting to ‘win’ the presidency,” but rather, he is “expecting to help build a party to build community, society and a new world.” Dr. Ball feels that to best address the unacceptable conditions that a majority of Americans live in today, a new party and a new style of politics is essential – this is precisely what he hopes to be building with the Green Party.
Using his unique hip-hop style of campaigning, Dr. Ball hopes to reach out to the hip-hop communities around this nation to develop new support bases for the Green Party. He claims that he is not targeting Democrats or Republicans to steal votes, as he views both parties as being unable to “legitimately represent the needs of the true majority.” So he would see no reason to assist either side.
Rather, Dr. Ball is targeting the millions upon millions of silent voices that do not vote, and he views that increasing the Green Party’s membership will be the mark by which to measure his campaign’s success.
Dr. Ball undoubtedly has many strong views on numerous issues that impact the hip-hop community and he feels that he is the voice that can best represent our most vital interests. His optimistic drive is founded in the belief that the hip-hop generation is extremely powerful, and Dr. Ball feels that, similar to the environments of the social movements led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other political and cultural freedom fighters, the hip-hop culture itself provides an excellent setting and opportunity to unite a community in a fight for social justice for all.
Take a moment to visit Jared Ball’s website as well as his many other projects and decide for yourself if he truly represents the hip-hop generation as well as your own personal views. Regardless, there is one thing that is for certain – our collective voice as members of the hip-hop generation is powerful and it continues to gain strength. We need to take advantage of these opportunities to support our culture, and Dr. Ball is clearly one powerful person currently carrying the ball for the hip-hop generation … even during his presidential campaign.
- Rapáil Eamon
Nat wrote:
another dope article Rapail! i’m really diggin’ this hip-hop politics thang right now. yeah, jared ball is the man. he is intelligent, qualified, and down to earth. and unlike your “ordinary candidate,” ball is in touch with the common man and woman.
as a member of Generation X, it’s refreshing to finally see some post-baby-boomers involved in high-level politics. with the exception of Ball and Obama, all i see is a bunch of old farts fighting battles of the past. we need different candidates to give hope that a new leadership is emerging.
i think a lot of people would never support a green party candidate because they won’t win. however, it’s better to make your voice heard and help the growth of legitimate 3rd parties than fall in line and throw your ballot at the lesser of two evils. i hope the party finds the best candidate to help them grow, and jared ball could be that guy.
Posted on 12-Dec-07 at 3:07 pm | Permalink
Rapáil wrote:
Thanks for your comments, Nat.
In regards to third parties, I found it interesting when Ron Paul was asked yesterday after the Republican debate on CNN if he would run as an Independent. A question he has been asked many times during his campaign, but this time he broke it down a bit more.
He bluntly stated that the electoral system is completely unfair and that not only are the chips stacked against a non-Republican or non-Democrat, but these traditional parties work very hard to keep it that way. Paul feels that it is a fight that simply cannot be won and therefore, there is no reason why he would run as an Independent.
Sounds to me like the candidates are making a “lesser of two evils” decision, just like many of the voters do. And speaking of throwing your “ballot at the lesser of two evils” like you put it, Dr. Ball addressed this issue directly in a statement that he made to launch his candidacy:
“The party’s freedom from corporate dominance, its commitment to social justice and redistribution of society’s wealth and service and its call for diversity are far more substantive than those false claims of such made with varying degrees by other parties. It is time to build a genuine populist party, one built on the proper politics of those who, like Kwame Ture once made clear, are no longer willing to accept the lesser of evil because, ‘we will not vote for evil, period.’
To that end we are developing a campaign which seeks to break convention by centering attention and focus on culture, those most oppressed and those who have long since given up on the vote and are looking for a new politics and new organizations.”
Posted on 13-Dec-07 at 11:39 am | Permalink
Lean wrote:
I like what Ball represents. I thought the article was very well written. The thing that puzzles me is the attention given to the word “Hip-Hop.” The article and Dr. Ball’s web site is full of terms like the hip-hop community, hip-hop generation, and hip-hop style of campaigning. I do not belive most of the county views hip-hop the way this community does or the way Dr. Ball views hip-hop. Dr. Ball’s campaign is heavily targeted to fixing the problems of the intercity and fixing the constant race on race war going on. Does the hip-hop generation include the intercity? Do the individuals in race on race war no anything about what hip-hop truely is meant to be? Do they even care what hip-hop truely means? For that matter, do they even listen to hip-hop? I don’t know. I am just observing and asking the questions. Does Dr. Ball address the correct people when he is camaigning. According to his web site he is at Humbolt college in northern California. I could be wrong but the last time I checked Humbolt county is the farthest place on this earth from the intercity.
Posted on 14-Dec-07 at 10:03 am | Permalink
joseph wrote:
The people should? control Washington! Washington
should? control the military! The people are turning
Black$Brown! Big Business is controlling the military
Homeland Security and verichip are shifting/providing the warfunding needed to complete the
above!
CAN YOU DIG IT?
Posted on 15-Dec-07 at 10:50 am | Permalink