Melina Abdullah

Last updated

Melina Abdullah
Melina Abdullah (27700459240) (cropped).jpg
Born
Melina Rachel Reimann

1972 (age 5152)
Education Howard University (BA)
University of Southern California (MA, PhD)
Employer California State University, Los Angeles
Children3
Relatives Günter Reimann (grandfather)

Melina Reimann Abdullah (born 1972) is an American academic and civic leader. She is the former chair of the department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and is a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter Grassroots, for which she also serves as co-director. [1]

Contents

As an original member of the group that convened to form Black Lives Matter, she serves as a matriarch for the current movement in Los Angeles. In addition to organizing work with BLM Los Angeles, she has hosted three local radio shows, "Move the Crowd" and "Beautiful Struggle" on KPFK and "This Is Not a Drill" on KBLA. [2]

On April 10, 2024, independent 2024 presidential candidate Cornel West announced Abdullah as his running mate. [3]

Early life and education

Melina Rachel Reimann was born in the East Oakland section of Oakland, California. [4] Her father, John Reimann, was "a union organizer and self-proclaimed Trotskyist." [4] Her mother is Linda Fowler Blackston; she was raised by Oji "Baba" Blackston. Her paternal grandfather was Günter Reimann (born Hans Steinicke), a German-Jewish Marxist economist and member of the Communist Party of Germany who opposed Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. [5] [6] [7]

She graduated from Howard University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in African American Studies. [8] She subsequently earned Master of Arts (M.A.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in political science from the University of Southern California. [8] [9]

Reimann changed her surname to Abdullah due to her marriage to filmmaker Phaylen Abdullah and kept the name after their divorce. [10]

Career

Abdullah is a tenured professor and served as chair of the department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. [8] She was interviewed in 13th , a 2016 documentary about mass incarceration in the United States.

Abdullah has served on the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission since 2014. [8] She is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation chapter in Los Angeles, California, [4] and regularly writes articles for the LA Progressive. [11]

She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. [12] [13]

Activism

Abdullah is a self-described "womanist scholar-activist." She has said that her academic roles are connected with her activist role in fighting for liberating those who have been exploited many times. [14] She serves on several boards, including Black Community, Clergy and Labor Alliance (BCCLA), Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA-CAN), and Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE). [8] Abdullah has also worked closely with Rabbi Brous in Los Angeles, speaking on many panels with Brous about white supremacy and allyship with the Black/Jewish Justice Alliance (BJJA). [15] [16] She has been featured on season two of Rabbi Heather Miller's podcast "Keeping It Sacred". [17]

As part of her activism, Abdullah has been detained several times. She has accused the city of Los Angeles of bringing charges for the sole purpose of quashing her activism, which often includes antagonistic encounters at Police Commission meetings. [18]

Abdullah was arrested on suspicion of battery against a police officer, following an incident in which she allegedly grabbed the officer's arm during the arrest of protester Sheila Hines-Brim at an LAPD police commission hearing. Hines-Brim allegedly threw an unknown powdery substance at Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, which she claimed were the cremated ashes of her niece Wakiesha Wilson (who died in LAPD custody in 2016). [19] Abdullah was charged with misdemeanor battery, as well as seven other counts: these charges included interfering with a public business establishment and the lawful business of the Police Commission during separate incidents in 2017. The criminal charges against Abdullah were eventually dismissed. [20] The city later agreed to pay Wilson's family nearly $300,000 to settle a lawsuit they filed over her death. [21]

During a debate by ABC7 for the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral election, police removed Melina Abdullah, at Cal State LA as well as other protesters from the room as they did not have tickets to the event. [22]

Controversies

In February 2024, Abdullah was criticized for tweets in which she called that being a fan of Taylor Swift is "slightly racist" ("Why do I feel like it’s slightly racist to be a Taylor Swift fan?") and the outcome of the Super Bowl LVIII a "right-wing, white-supremacist conspiracy". [23] [24]

Personal life

Abdullah resides in Mid-City, Los Angeles. [25] She has three children. [4]

Publications

Awards and nominations

In October 2021, Melina received "Chatham House Centenary Diversity Champion Award". [30]

Credits

YearTitleRole
2015 Tavis Smiley guest [31]
2016 Democracy Now! self
2016 13th self [32]
2017Waking the Sleeping Giant: The Making of a Political Revolutionself
2019Touré Showguest
2019THE CALL with Melina Abdullahhost
2019 Hello, Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea self
2019-2021 Good Trouble self [31]
2020 CNN Newsroom self [33]
2021Invisible Blackness with Adrian Youngeguest
2021Rising Upself
2022Liberal Hivemindself

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References

  1. "A sordid fight over money between Black Lives Matter factions". World Socialist Web Site. September 15, 2022. Retrieved March 27, 2023.
  2. Flournoy, Angela (August 18, 2021). "Melina Abdullah is showing L.A. how to be accountable to a future we can't yet see". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
  3. Pellish, Aaron (April 10, 2024). "Cornel West announces fellow academic Melina Abdullah as running mate". CNN. Retrieved April 10, 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Aron, Hillel (November 9, 2015). "These Savvy Women Have Made Black Lives Matter the Most Crucial Left-Wing Movement Today". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on July 8, 2018. Retrieved July 8, 2018.
  5. McGahan, Jason (January 21, 2019). "The People v. Melina Abdullah". theLAnd. 1 (1).
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  7. Saxon, Wolfgang (April 4, 2005). "Guenter Reimann, Economic Publisher, Is Dead at 100". The New York Times.
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  9. "Pan-African Studies | Melina Abdullah". Cal State LA. November 23, 2013. Archived from the original on June 6, 2020. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
  10. "Black Lives Matter L.A. Leader Melina Abdullah is One of the Most Outspoken Critics of the LAPD. Now She's Facing Eight Criminal Charges". theLAnd. January 21, 2019. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
  11. Abdullah, Melina (April 16, 2020). "Black Los Angeles Demands in Light of COVID-19 and Rates of Black Death". LA Progressive. Retrieved July 6, 2020.
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  18. Queally, James (February 8, 2019). "L.A. city attorney agrees to drop charges against Black Lives Matter leader amid public outcry". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
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  20. Service • •, City News. "Criminal Case Dismissed Against Black Lives Matter Leader". NBC Los Angeles. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
  21. "Melina Abdullah, professor and co-founder of BLM Los Angeles, on police commission hearing arrest". FOX 11. May 9, 2018. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
  22. Park, Jeong; Newberry, Laura; Wick, Julia (May 1, 2022). "Police forcibly remove Black Lives Matter-L.A. leader from mayoral debate". Los Angeles Times .{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  23. "Is This Black Lives Matter Leader Right About a 'Racist' Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce Obsession?". The Root. February 26, 2024. Retrieved February 26, 2024.
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  29. Abdullah, Melina (January 1, 2017). "What the Black Lives Matter Movement Demands of Ethnic Studies Scholars". Ethnic Studies Review. 37–38 (1): 5–9. doi: 10.1525/esr.2017.37_38.1.5 . ISSN   1555-1881.
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