Authenticity Over Fear: Why Green Party VP Candidate Ajamu Baraka Matters by Lawrence Ware

Authenticity Over Fear: Why Green Party VP Candidate Ajamu Baraka Mattersby Lawrence Ware | @Law_Ware | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
I’m not (yet?) with her, and I’ll never vote for Donald Trump, so I’m open to the idea of a third party candidate—and Jill Stein now has my full attention. On August 1, 2016, the presumptive Green Party candidate announced her running mate: the brilliant and progressive human rights scholar and activist Ajamu Baraka.
In a statement released on her website, Stein said:
“I am honored and excited to announce that my running mate in the 2016 presidential election will be Ajamu Baraka, activist, writer, intellectual and organizer with a powerful voice, vision, and lifelong commitment to building true political revolution. Ajamu Baraka is a powerful, eloquent spokesperson for the transformative, radical agenda whose time has come – an agenda of economic, social, racial, gender, climate, indigenous and immigrant justice. Stein concluded by stating “In this hour of unprecedented crisis, we are honored to lift up a unified movement for justice in the only national political party that is not held hostage by corporate money, lobbyists and super-PACs. We look forward to bringing this agenda for justice to the American people in the exciting race ahead.”
Now I’m conflicted.
Many contemporary black academics (myself included) like to think of ourselves as revolutionary; yet, unfortunately, the only thing revolutionary about us tends to be our social media presence. When it is time to sacrifice for a cause, most black intellectuals choose tenure over truth, comfort over a commitment to justice. Not so with Stein’s running mate. He’s the real deal.
Ajamu Baraka is internationally recognized as both a scholar and a human rights activist. He is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and frequently contributes to Black Agenda Report. He has been featured in publications like the BBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. He was the founding executive director of the United States Human Rights Network, and he has served on the boards of human rights organizations like Amnesty International and the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights.  His is a life dedicated to service, and Stein selecting him as her running mate has thrown me into an existential crisis.
I’m conflicted about Hillary Clinton. She has been a fixture in the political sphere for so long that her nomination doesn’t feel groundbreaking—it feels inevitable. President Obama’s sudden rise to the presidency packed an emotional punch because it was so unexpected. He went from a promising orator to a political force in under half a decade. When he announced his candidacy, I cried. When the Democratic Party nominated him, I cried. Perchance, like Carl Thomas, I’m just emotional—but I think it was my surprise that moved me.
When Clinton was nominated, I reflected on the fact that history had been made…and I moved on. It didn’t carry emotional weight for me. Perhaps I, like many self-identified male feminists, am still recovering from my patriarchal socialization and the nomination of a woman doesn’t mean as much to me. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a daughter. Or maybe it’s because of Clinton’s dismissal of Black Lives matter protestors, her record in Haiti, her support for the death penalty, and her prolific use of the phraseology Super Predators in the mid 1990s.  Either way, I’m not with her—at least not yet.
That’s why the selection of Baraka is so enticing. Here we have an authentic man whose commitment to justice is shown in the way he lives—not just the words he says. He has sacrificed for a cause he believes in. He inspires and challenges me; however, I’m not yet sold on the Green Party ticket—because he is not running alone.
Jill Stein is equal parts exciting and confusing. Exciting because of her commitment to fighting against economic inequality and racism. Confusing because the Harvard University trained physician sometimes panders to anti-vaxxers and makes bewildering statements like “the answer to neo-fascism is stopping neoliberalism” in response to the danger Donald Trump’s possible election portends.
So while Ajamu’s selection excites and intrigues me, I am not yet sold on the logic of voting for the Green Party…especially if that means possibly clearing the way for a Donald Trump presidency. The temptation to vote one’s conscious is a dangerous one with The Donald representing the other side. Yet,  I hear the words of W.E.B. Du Bois ringing in my ears.  
On October 20, 1956, W. E. B. Du Bois brilliantly explicated why it may be in the interest of black brown people to vote for a third party candidate if they were displeased by candidates from the major parties. Writing in The Nation, Du Bois contends,
“Since I was twenty-one in 1889, I have in theory followed the voting plan strongly advocated by Sidney Lens in The Nation of August 4, i.e., voting for a third party even when its chances were hopeless, if the main parties were unsatisfactory; or, in absence of a third choice, voting for the lesser of two evils.”
With Du Bois’s words challenging me, I find myself at an impasse. Black voters have been taken for granted by Democrats and all but forsaken by Republicans. Should we allow the fear of Donald Trump to force us into voting for a candidate that we don’t actually believe in? Should we take a look at a third party candidate?
I’m not sure.
One thing I do know is that black and brown people in this country need a change, and maybe taking a serious look at third party candidates is worth the time—especially when the Green Party’s Vice Presidential candidate is a man who unapologetically loves and fights for oppressed people.
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Lawrence Ware is an Oklahoma State University Division of Institutional Diversity fellow. He teaches in OSU’s philosophy department and is the diversity coordinator for its Ethics Center. A frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissent magazine, he is also a contributing editor of NewBlackMan (in Exile) and the Democratic Left. He has been a commentator on race and politics for HuffPost Live, NPR’s Talk of the Nation and PRI’s Flashpoint. Follow him on Twitter.