BUZZ
Professor clarifies she meant protest tactics
A video has gone viral showing a California State University Los Angeles professor giving out the name and hotel address of a specific ICE agent and urging the audience repeatedly to go “f*ck him up.”
Melina Abdullah, a professor of Pan-African Studies and leader in the Black Lives Matter movement, made the comments at a “La Defensa del Pueblo: A Summit to End the Terror Against the People” summit over the weekend in Los Angeles that featured a collection of leftwing activist groups.
“The killer ICE agent, who we’ve got on good authority is right down the road … his name is Brian Palacios … and we will show you a picture of his pig ass,” said Abdullah, giving the name and city of the hotel.
A two-minute clip of her comments was posted to X by Stu Smith, an investigative analyst at City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute.
Palacios was off-duty when he shot and killed a black man on New Year’s Eve in a case under investigation, the Los Angeles Times reported in May.
“Some of [the victim’s] friends have suggested he was shooting the weapon into the air to celebrate the new year. Federal authorities said in the immediate aftermath of the incident that the ICE agent was responding to a suspected ‘active shooter’ when he opened fire. Palacios’ attorney has said he acted in self-defense,” the newspaper reported.
Speaking to the audience, Abdullah said “sometimes it’s just do this sh*t,” then giving the address of the hotel. “You see the devil right there, f*ck him up. F*ck him up.”
She went on to encourage the audience to “study guerrilla warfare,” clarifying she meant to mess the officer up through protest tactics. She cited “powerful-ass prayer,” standing on the “frontlines and putting your body on the line like it’s necessary in this moment,” and “giving a dollar.”
“When I say ‘fu*k him up,” Abdullah said, repeating the address of the hotel, “I mean in many ways. They don’t get to do their shit invisibly. Shine a light on their mother f*cking ass. … Turn up, organize, and win this sh*t.”
Smith, in his comments on X, argued even with the qualification, Abdullah likely crossed a line.
“But that qualification comes only after she names a specific person, gives a possible location and street address, and repeatedly tells the crowd to ‘fu*k him up.’ You can argue about the legal threshold. It is much harder to argue that this sequence would not reasonably be understood as putting a specific person in danger,” Smith wrote.
The College Fix emailed a request for comment Tuesday morning to CSULA’s Pan-African Studies department, the email listed on Abdullah’s faculty bio, and media relations division asking for comments, clarifications, or context regarding the clip.
According to her faculty bio, Abdullah is a womanist scholar-activist – “understanding the role that she plays in the academy as intrinsically linked to broader struggles for the liberation of oppressed people.”
The College Fix has repeatedly covered the scholar’s verbal antics in years past.
In 2017, at a conference on “intersectionality” and discrimination, she argued that today’s police officers are the “slave catchers” of prior generations.
In 2022, she told white people not to ask to attend a Juneteenth cookout.
“Attention white people … Please don’t ask if you can come to the cookout,” the professor tweeted. “#Juneteenth is freedom day for Black folks. It should be #Reparations day for white folks.”
In 2024, she suggested it’s slightly racist to be a Taylor Swift fan.
She also once called conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, a “neo-Nazi” and “neo-KKK member.”
Cornel West, running as a third party presidential candidate in 2024, also chose her as his running mate.
MORE: Cal State professor: White people shouldn’t ask to come to Juneteenth cookout
