The Interdisciplinary Collaborative Workshop on Democracy under Threat: Public Scholarship and Teaching is organizing two online teach-ins in July

“Policing, Public Policy, and Racial Justice: Stories and Analysis from Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.” 

Interdisciplinary Collaborative Workshop Online Teach-In

Tuesday, July 14, 2020, 12:00-3:00 p.m. (CST), 1:00-4:00 p.m. (EST)

Recent protests across our nation and around the globe, in response to the murder of George Floyd and many other people of color, have resulted in long overdue debates and policy proposals concerning the failure of our current system of militarized policing, the problem of police brutality and racialized violence, and the need to create alternative community-based systems of public safety and crime prevention. This workshop will explore the historical roots of our contemporary model of policing, racist policing practices and cultures, and various public policy proposals for transforming policing and ensuring racial justice. Using a racial lens and an historical and comparative perspective, we seek to better understand how racism, xenophobia, class inequality, and gender oppression have shaped policing and led to the criminalization of Blackness and of immigrants, indigenous communities, refugee populations, LGBTQ people, homeless people, and poor white workers. We will explore a wide range of policy proposals being put forth to guarantee public safety while ensuring racial justice, from reforming to defunding to abolishing the police. 

These teach-ins are free, open to the public, and will be accessible via Zoom links.

Organizers: These two events are being organized by faculty and students in the departments of African American & African Studies, History, Political Science, and Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, along with faculty and students in the same four departments at three Historically Black Colleges – Howard University (in Washington DC), and Morehouse College and Spellman College (both in Atlanta, GA). Faculty, students, and community activists from each of the four institutions and three cities will participate in each teach-in.