Police Brutality Archives - Public Seminar

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Why Spit-Hoods Should Be Banned

A relic of slavery, they are inhumane and often deadly

March 4, 2021 • by Leslie Reagan

_____ In September, the world saw a video of Rochester, New York, police putting a spit hood over Daniel Prude’s head and face as he sat naked and handcuffed on a cold, wintry street. The mentally ill man was dead a week later. His death, the medical examiner declared, was homicide due to “complications ...

Literature

The Big Cats, Part IX

On the heat and halitosis of the State

July 28, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

This palpative uncommonwealth, a thing held / or pulled apart like a tightrope or meat off the bone....

Activism

Their Violence and Ours

Attacks on property do not always undermine a political cause

July 16, 2020 • by William E. Scheuerman

How should we make sense of the political violence that has sometimes accompanied Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests? What about the state’s violent response to peaceful protest, or the dangerous acts committed by right-wing counter-protestors? Speaking on Canadian radio in the wake of 160 riots that shook U.S. cities during the ...

Activism

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Nonviolent, cross-racial coalitions are the way back to a decent America

July 9, 2020 • by Todd Gitlin

I wrote the article that follows three years ago. Since it first appeared in the American Prospect, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has generated the largest protest movement in American history. What has changed? And what hasn’t? It remains true that the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) is ill-defined. It has rough edges ...

What Will It Take for Black Lives to Matter?

Politics

Harnessing Federal Power for Police Reform in America

What we can learn from Reconstruction and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

July 8, 2020 • by Richard Johnson and Desmond King

History suggests that the response to the current crisis of policing in the United States must be a stronger role for the federal government. Yet few activists within the Movement for Black Lives are demanding that the federal government flex its coercive muscle. Given the racism of the current occupant ...

Harnessing Federal Power for Police Reform in America

Literature

The Big Cats, Part VI

On the rough, indifferent tongue of the truth

July 7, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

Come and see the tigers lick us with their rough / indifferent tongues as our wax darkens...

Activism

A Tale of Three Protests — in Brooklyn

A photo-essay

June 29, 2020 • by Jo Freeman

On Saturday, May 30, I heard that a crowd was at Bedford and Tilden in Flatbush near the Sears parking lot where Covid-19 testing has been conducted for several weeks. When I got there at about 5:30 p.m, I saw two to three hundred people milling in the street. They had ...

Activism

Social Justice Is More Important Than Social Distance

Why a researcher who understands the health consequences of mass gatherings is in the streets fighting racism

June 19, 2020 • by Miranda Yaver

My first political memory was watching officers of the Los Angeles Police Department beating Rodney King on television. I did not fully comprehend what I was watching at 5 years old, though I sensed that it was unjust. Nearly three decades later, braving coronavirus and angry about police brutality against people ...

Social Justice Is More Important Than Social Distance

Activism

Why “Abolition of the Police” Is a Bad Idea

We need the police to enforce equal justice and protect ordinary citizens, not to go away

June 18, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Note: The author would like to thank Jim Miller for his editing, and Adam Kent-Isaac, Lisi Kent-Isaac, Debra Kent, Bob Orsi, Mala Htun, and Jeffrey Tulis for their comments. A much longer version of this piece can be read at the author’s blog. On June 15, 2020, citizens demonstrating against racism ...

Why “Abolition of the Police” Is a Bad Idea

Activism

Reject Reform

Why “No Justice, No Peace; Prosecute Police” hopes for too little

June 11, 2020 • by Micol Seigel

I’m writing as the nation ignites with protests against police brutality -- again. This time, the loss is a Minnesota man named George Floyd. As I join in the protests of Floyd’s tragic death, I dare to hope that this time, they might spark real and meaningful change. My research ...

North America

What Would Good National Leadership Look Like Now?

How best to address America’s current crises

June 11, 2020 • by Desmond King and Rogers M. Smith

The United States is in the midst of three national crises: a public health crisis, an economic crisis, and a civil rights crisis provoked by racist police brutality and structural racism. Each demands national responses and leadership. Designed to prevent centralized tyranny, the American federal system has always had trouble marshaling a ...

What Would Good National Leadership Look Like Now?

Activism

Americans Have Been in the Streets for Almost Ten Years

The legacies and lessons of Occupy Wall Street, the Women’s Resistance, and Black Lives Matter

June 11, 2020 • by Peter Dreier

In his call with governors on June 1, President Donald Trump said the current protests are “like a movement, and it’s a movement that if you don’t put it down, it’ll get worse and worse. This is like Occupy Wall Street.” Astonishingly, like that broken clock that is correct twice a ...