Winter 2019: Whose Safety? Policing Minds, Bodies, and Borders in Detroit

"Public Safety" in Waawiyataanong/Oppenago will center this series in our region's indigenous history, culture and contemporary movements around safety and security.  Community partners and series planners will also be introduced and we will end with small-group discussions sharing introductions and expectations for the semester.  

Speakers: Grandmother Sharon George, Darryl Jordan (East Michigan Environmental Action Council, Cass Corridor Commons), Diana Copeland

Recommended Readings: 

• The Dynamics of American Indian Diplomacy in the Great Lakes Region
• The Wyandot and the River
• Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America: Part One
• Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America: Part Two
• "A Little Flesh We Offer You": The Origins of Indian Slavery in New France
  

"The History of Race and Policing in America" examines the intersection of race, criminalization, and policing. Historian Jamon Jordan will discuss how policing developed in Detroit as means to curtail Black freedom, and has remained a key enforcement mechanism of racial subjugation as well as a hotly contested site of resistance ever since. He will be joined by Kenneth Reed of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, who will discuss the history of the organization and will talk about the often traumatic impact that criminalization and hyper-policing  have on Black communities, families, and residents in Detroit today.

Speakers: Jamon Jordan (Black Scroll History Network & Tours) , Kenneth Reed (Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality)

Recommended Readings: 

• Ron Scott Talks on Police Brutality, Detroit, and One More
• African American and African Canadian Transnationalism along the Detroit River Borderland: The Example of Madison J. Lightfoot
• How the roots of Detroit's police department helped spawn 1967 rebellion
• From Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation Chapter 4: The Double Standard of Justice
  
• An Unnamed Girl, a Speculative History
  

Speakers: Rev. Dan Aldridge, Elliot Hall

Moderated by: Peter Hammer (Detroit Equity Action Lab)

Policing Black Power will look at surveillance and police activity targeting the emerging Black Power movement in Detroit.  Topics will include the Republic of New Africa, the Black Panthers, the New Bethel Incident and the response of Black Judges and Lawyers, like Judge George Crockett, Jr., and Attorney Ken Cockrel.

*Please note that the recommended readings list is subject to be added to and/or edited*

Recommended Readings:

• Dan Berger, "The Malcolm X Doctrine: The Republic of New Afrika and National Liberation on U.S. Soil," in New World Coming: The Sixties and the Shaping of Global Consciousness, ed. Karen Dubinsky (Toronto, 2009)
  
• Historical Causes & Consequences of the 1967 Civil Disorder
• Understanding Covert Repressive Action: The Case of the U.S. Government against the Republic of New Africa
• Militarizing American Police: The Rise and Normalization of Paramilitary Units
  
• THE REPRESSION OF THE RNA
  
• “They feel the beams resting upon their necks”: George W. Crockett and the Developmentof Equal Justice Under Law, 1948–1969
• Police and Riots, 1967-1969
  
• THE STRUGGLE OF THE REPUBLIC OF NEW AFRICA
  
• Finally Got the News: Urban Insurgency, Counterinsurgency, and the Crisis of Hegemony in Detroit
• STRESS (Chapter 8 of Detroit: I Do Mind Dying)

Recommended Viewings:

• News Coverage of the New Bethel Incident
• The Issue of Policing in Detroit's 1973 Mayoral Election
  

Speakers (more to be announced soon): Siwatu-Salama Ra, Asha Noor, Baba Baxter Jones, Arthur Bowman, & Bridget Dawson 

Moderated by: Yemisi Odetoyinbo (BYP 100)

"Policing Identities" will examine the harm that happens at the intersections of holding various identities and policing. This session will feature a panel discussion, followed by breakout groups individually focused on how policing affects Black women, Muslims, the queer and trans community, and more.

*Please note that the recommended readings list is subject to be added to and/or edited*

Recommended Readings:

• Disability Rights: The Overlooked Civil Rights Issue
• "Bag a Fag" Operations in Michigan: Police Misconduct, Entrapment, and Crimes Against Gay Men
• Detroit’s transgender community: 'Police have have no sympathy for us'
• African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race
• Black Lives Matter is Democracy in Action
• The War on Drugs Is a War on Women of Color

Recommended Viewings:

• Detroit Activist Launches Federal Lawsuit for Disability Rights (Closed Captions)

Containment & Surveillance: Shifting Borders and Boundaries will explore how policing and surveillance are being utilized to define and defend new borders and boundaries in a changing city. Topics will include Project Greenlight, the jurisdictions and powers of various law enforcement agencies in Detroit, and the role of policing in the shifting landscape of public and private space in the city.

*Please note that the recommended readings list is subject to be added to and/or edited*

Recommended Readings:

• Origins of Project Greenlight - Detroit Police Department
• Policing Home Spaces
• Detroit's New Policing Strategy Is Stop-And-Frisk on a Massive Scale
• Does Detroit's Project Green Light really make the city safer?
• Group fighting police brutality has questions for Wayne State University
• Dislocation Without Relocation
• “A War within Our Own Boundaries”: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the Rise of the Carceral State
• Inside the Real Time Crime Center, DPD’s 24-hour monitoring station
  
• My Own Private Detroit
  
• Organizing to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline: An Analysis of Grassroots Organizing Campaigns and Policy Solutions
• The Dismantling of an Urban School System: Detroit, 1980-2014
  
• Project Green Light faces scrutiny as Detroit eyes mandate for thousands of businesses
• Watching Dan Gilbert's watchmen
  
• Wayne State facing $127,000 fine for faulty crime reporting
• Spatial Stigma, Sexuality, and Neoliberal Decline in Detroit, Michigan

This session will analyze the rise of mass incarceration in Detroit and its many costs, from the personal and communal to the economic and political. The session will also highlight the ways that communities in Detroit and beyond are organizing to resist oppressive policing and the carceral state, and envision new notions of safety and security.

Speakers: 

• Alia Harvey-Quinn (FORCE Detroit)
• Troy Rienstra (Safe and Just Michigan)
• Michael Stauch (University of Toledo)
  

Recommended Readings:

• Detroit and the political origins of ‘broken windows’ policing

This Detroiters Speak session will be focused on the New Abolition Movement. Presenters Amanda Alexander, Rashad Buni, and Paige Watkins will be discussing the ins and outs of abolition, BYP100's national campaign, and the No New Jails Detroit Campaign. Join us for a night of education, discussion, and action.