Green Party To Tap Hip-Hop Activist For VP
Signaling it is serious about courting the hip-hop vote, Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has tapped respected hip-hop activist Rosa Clemente as her Vice Presidential pick.
If the Green Party accepts McKinney's nomination this weekend at its convention, Clemente will make history as the first hip-hop generation candidate on a presidential ticket, and together with McKinney make up the first all-female of color ticket in U.S. history. McKinney is African American. Clemente identifies herself as Puerto Rican of African descent.
Clemente joins Brooklyn Congressional candidate Kevin Powell as another prominent hip-hop writer/activist competing in the 2008 elections. Maryland hip-hop activist and scholar Jared Ball also competed for the Green Party presidential nomination, ending his run this past January.
"This campaign is the opportunity the Hip-Hop generation has been working for," Clemente wrote in an email to supporters this morning. "This is our time to address the issues affecting our communities - rising unemployment, the high cost of food and housing, a lack of quality public education and access to higher education, the prison-industrial complex, and unaccountable corporate media. These issues are not being addressed by either the Republican or Democratic nominee."
Clemente has been one of the most prominent national hip-hop activists for nearly a decade. She was one of the co-founders of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention and of REACHip-Hop, a New York City-based coalition that launched a boycott of Hot 97 for greater accountability and balance on the airwaves. Affiliated with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Clemente has been a prominent national organizer around securing aid to Gulf Coast victims of Katrina, and against the verdicts in the Sean Bell case.
Clemente's potential VP run was welcomed by many in the hip-hop community.
"I've never voted in the Presidential election; I've never felt strongly enough about a candidate to, said rapper M1 of Dead Prez. "I feel that now is the greatest opportunity for the Hip-Hop community to put our collective strength and power to the test and vote for someone who represents who we are and what we stand for."
"It's a good sign of political maturity for hip-hop," Troy Nkrumah, 2008 Chair of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, said of Clemente's run. "There are issues we've been screaming about to the candidates and they've ignored them--whether police accountability, the prison system, or the war in Iraq. They touch the issues on the surface, they talk about change, but their policies are in line with Bush. A lot of us were turned off."
"But Rosa is one of the people that knows we need systemic change, especially the youth community," he added. "She has a history of speaking her mind, not holding her tongue, and telling the truth."
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