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Butch Ware
American associate professor, rapper and politician (born 1974) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Rudolph "Butch" T. Ware III (born 1974), also known as Bilal Ware in the American Muslim community,[1][2][3][4] is an American associate professor and hip hop artist who was the 2024 vice presidential nominee for the Green Party. He is one half of the hip hop duo Slum Prophecy.
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Ware has been vocal about the George Floyd murder in 2020 and the Gaza war.[5] He has organized teach-ins, community education curricula, and other organizing initiatives. Ware has been vocal as a public intellectual, activist, artist, and organizer, and supports communities across the country and around the world to challenge imperialism, ethnic cleansing, and war.[6] He advocates for building sustainable, peaceful alternatives rooted in African, Indigenous, and Abrahamic traditions.[7][8]
He is currently running for governor of California in the 2026 gubernatorial election.[9][10]
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Education
Ware received his undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota in 1997.[11] He received his PhD in history in 2004 from the University of Pennsylvania where he was trained in African History, and Islamic Intellectual History.[12]
Career
A historian of West Africa at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he first began teaching at Northwestern University, and later at the University of Michigan.[13][14]
Ware is also one half of the hip hop duo Slum Prophecy. Less than two weeks before he began running for vice president, Slum Prophecy released an album titled Aqsa Flood.[15] He is currently an associate professor in the department of History at the University of California-Santa Barbara,[16] and the founder and director of the Initiative for the Study of Race, Religion, and Revolution ("ISRAR")[17][18]
In August 2024, he was selected by Jill Stein as the vice presidential nominee of the Green Party in the 2024 United States presidential election.[19]
On November 11, 2024, Ware announced that he would be running in the midterms to become the Governor of California.[20]
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Political positions
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Perspective
Gaza war
Ware has likened Hamas's 2023 October 7 attacks to Nat Turner's Rebellion, viewing Hamas as a resistance group.[21]
On October 11, 2023, Ware tweeted "...Oppressed people don't have a RIGHT to resist occupation, we have a RESPONSIBILITY to resist."[15]
Informed by Black radical tradition, Ware is an anti-Zionist and believes that Zionism is rooted in white supremacy.[22]
LGBT+ rights
Ware is a staunch advocate for LGBTQ+ civil rights, firmly committed to full inclusion, respect, and justice for all communities. He has repeatedly affirmed his support[23] for the life and dignity of LGBTQ+ individuals. Ware acknowledges the historical leadership of LGBTQ+ activists in the fight for social justice and remains dedicated to defending their rights in all spheres of society.
His campaign aligns with Green Party values of full bodily autonomy, gender justice, and anti-discrimination protections[24][25]
In an interview with YouTuber The Black Authority in late October 2024, when asked "do you agree with the idea of biological males playing in female sports",[26] Ware stated: "I don't think that biological males should play in female sports. I think it gives an unfair [...] competitive advantage."[27][28] Ware has stated that his comments were taken out of context by media outlets, Tweeting, "The remarks in question, presented in a hostile interview, were misrepresented through selective editing to suggest otherwise. In context, I was engaging in what I thought was a discussion of a nuanced policy on Olympic inclusion based on information shared by the IOC, not making a statement against trans inclusion."[29]
Abortion
When questioned[a] on legal limits for abortion in the United States, Ware affirms support for reproductive rights, aligning with Green Party values that recognize a woman's inalienable right to make decisions about her own body.[30][31] Ware believes that safe, legal, and accessible abortion is a fundamental right, and that restricting access disproportionately harms young, poor, and marginalized women.[32]
The Green Party's platform of reproductive rights, which he espouses, includes expanding access to contraception, comprehensive sex education, and public health initiatives to reduce unwanted pregnancies.[33] They support government funding for reproductive healthcare, including abortion services, to ensure that economic barriers do not limit any woman's ability to make choices about her body.[34]
Climate change
Ware is a firm advocate for aggressive climate action and a just transition to renewable energy.[35] Deeply aligned with Green Party values,[36][37] Ware views the climate crisis as a human-made disaster exacerbated by corporate greed and political complicity. He rejects the notion that wildfires, extreme weather, and environmental collapse are mere flukes, instead attributing them to decades of fossil fuel dependence and deregulation.[38]
Ware's gubernatorial campaign prioritizes ending California's reliance on fossil fuels, holding corporate polluters accountable, and investing in clean energy solutions.[39] He has criticized both major political parties for bowing to Big Oil, citing the millions of dollars in lobbying that have stalled real climate action. Ware also advocates for climate justice, recognizing that Black, Brown, and working-class communities suffer first and worst from environmental destruction. He has pledged to fight corporate real estate interests that exploit disaster-stricken areas and ensure that recovery efforts center community resilience, sustainable infrastructure, and long-term environmental protections.[40]
Through his campaign, Ware aims to dismantle the fossil fuel industry's grip on California politics and usher in a future where environmental policy is driven by science, justice, and public good—not corporate profits.
Immigration
Ware is a staunch advocate for immigrant rights and has centered his campaign on ending California's cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).[41] Ware has strongly condemned Governor Gavin Newsom's decision to veto AB 15, a bill aimed at limiting the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's (CDCR) collaboration with ICE.[42] He has criticized the long-standing racial profiling and civil rights violations by ICE, arguing that the agency's actions undermine constitutional protections and disproportionately harm asylum seekers and immigrants fleeing economic, ecological, and political crises—many of which he attributes to U.S. foreign policy and corporate exploitation.[43][44]
He believes that state cooperation with ICE not only disrupts immigrant communities but also erodes public trust in law enforcement, making neighborhoods more vulnerable to systemic injustice. As part of his campaign platform, Ware has pledged to enact policies that shield immigrant communities from federal overreach, advocating for a California government that serves all residents equitably, regardless of immigration status.[45][46][47]
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Personal life
Ware is a Muslim convert.[48] Ware stated in a podcast with The Thinking Muslim that he converted to Islam at the age of just 15 after being introduced to it by the autobiography of Malcolm X and then reading the Quran. He follows West African Sufi traditions and stated that "the Sufi tradition that I know tethers together spirituality with social justice".[49]
Electoral history
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Discography
- Aqsa Flood (2024)
Selected publications
- Ware, Rudolph T.; Wright, Zachary Valentine; Syed, Amir (2018). Jihad of the Pen: The Sufi Literature of West Africa. American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 978-977-416-863-5.[56]
- Ware, Rudolph T. (2014). The Walking Qurʼan: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-4696-1431-1. Project MUSE book 31232.[57]
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Notes
- 48:57 [...] [Interviewer:] do you believe there should be any limits on
49:03 abortion then[?] [Ware:] of course there should be limits on everything there there isn't there's almost nothing that should be
49:08 left you know completely un unregulated um you know uh but you know I think that that a lot of the kind of common sense
49:15 um you know uh uh uh regulations that most Americans agree on as a you know
49:21 essentially 6040 issues you know something like 16 weeks and and and other such you know I won't go into kind
49:28 of the the the fine points on it but of course there have to be um limitations there have to be regulations of of of
49:34 abortion without any question [...][26]
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References
External links
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