Jared Ball in '08

Jared Ball for President
www.jaredbforpresident.com

Meet Jared

My name is Jared Ball and I am currently running for the Green Party’s presidential nomination. I have accepted an invitation to do this for several reasons. First among them are the horrendous and entirely unacceptable conditions of a majority of the people of this nation and world. To best address those conditions a new party is needed, a new style of politics is needed and we are developing just that kind of campaign. While looking to bring something new we are also looking to do so on the basis of some old and forgotten (or suppressed) politics. First among them are those of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose genuine goals have long been forcibly hidden beneath the frozen and isolated description of a dream. But 2008 being the 40th anniversary of his assassination demands that we run such a campaign on the basis of King’s truly revolutionary positions of calling for radical political organization around an end to systems which reproduce white supremacy, militarism and gross inequalities in wealth and access to society’s benefits. That campaign is here.

I have long been disillusioned with electoral politics and since 1992 only voted for members of the Green Party or those whose unaffiliated status necessitated that I write them onto the ballot. I joined the DC Statehood/Green Party several years ago specifically because it was the only electoral political party overtly, as clear by name, in favor of statehood for those colonized in the nation’s capitol and a broader platform which speaks to the continuing needs of a majority of the nation and world. I am not running to further bolster the mythology of the vote as panacea. I am not running for simple symbolism. I am running because the true majority of women, the poor, Black, Latino and Indigenous people need organization, need a place to cohere and the Green Party is the structure with the expressed platform that can provide just that kind of liberated space and I am the candidate that can properly articulate such a need. 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 that those false claims of such made with varying degree 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. We are working with “the mayor of DC hip-hop” Head-Roc and others to provide a hip-hop and progressive artist tour which will reach out to the Indigenous, Black, Latino and poor communities who will help us develop new bases of support for the Green Party. This style of campaign will be brash and powerful representing the necessarily unorthodox politics we need and which are represented best by the Green Party. We are not targeting Democrats, Republicans or others to “steal” votes. We are not engaged in an effort to upset one or another major party candidacy as we do not see either as being able to legitimately represent the needs of the true majority and, therefore, see no reason to assist in the sabotage or ascendance of one or the other. And while we are not expecting to “win” the presidency we are expecting to help build a party to build community, society and a new world.

We are looking to build the original and genuine Rainbow Coalition of Fred Hampton, a coalition that breaks racial barriers and fosters unity along real material needs as opposed to the empty rhetoric of hate and division. Success in this case will be additional membership for the Green Party from the tens of millions of eligible but dormant voters. Success will be in demonstrating the difference of the party through the radical difference in our presentation and campaign approach. Voting or not voting are actions which by themselves, while equally political, are also equally insufficient for change. Real change can only come from organization on the basis of a truly radical platform such as offered by the Green Party. This is why I am running.

For more information, visit voxunion.com where video of my initial statement of candidacy can be found along with future campaign updates and methods of contact. Thank you for your time and support. Your party and politics are here. As Fred Hampton said, to you I say peace, if you are willing to fight for it.

Jared A. Ball


Brief Biographical Background
I am a member of the DC Statehood/Green Party, an assistant professor of communications studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD., an independent journalist, a radio host with WPFW 89.3 FM in Pacifica Radio Washington, DC, the Editor-at-Large of the Words, Beats and Life Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture and founder of FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show – a freely distributed monthly hip-hop mixtape dedicated to the practice of emancipatory journalism. I am a navy veteran who served during Desert Shield/Desert Storm, a graduate of Frostburg State University with a degree in history, a graduate of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University with a masters degree in Africana Studies and a graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park where I earned a doctorate in journalism and media studies. I have been a bartender, pizza delivery man and a high-school teacher in DC’s public school system before settling in at Morgan State University. I am the son of a European-descended Jewish woman and an African-descended Black man whose politics, class (caste) and commitment to human rights has made me intimately aware of the social forces at play maintaining the kinds of gross inequality and oppression which continues to be the basis of most human interaction and which must be dealt with systemically before we can expect any better a society or world. Most importantly, I am husband to a powerful and dynamic woman from Panama and father to our two children. In short, my background and politics while diverse are unified in a belonging and commitment to Black, Latin, Indigenous and oppressed communities whose justice must be made central if this country is to improve.