- Winter 2019: Whose Safety? Policing Minds, Bodies, and Borders in Detroit
- Fall 2018 Workshop Series: Healing Justice as Building Cultural Resilience
- Winter 2018: From "Two Societies to a New Society"
- Fall 2017: Reclaiming the Commons
- Summer 2017: Beyond '67 - The City-Wide Citizen's Action Committee
- Winter 2017: Toward Education Justice
- Detroiters Speak Archive
Join us for our Winter 2019 Detroiters Speak series: Whose Safety? Policing Minds, Bodies, and Borders in Detroit.
Each week will feature different Detroit-based speakers and guests who will explore the given topic and engage the students through a combination of formal remarks, presentations, and public discussion.
Light dinner provided; free transportation from Ann Arbor to Detroit; public welcome and encouraged to attend.
Free Parking provided in WSU lot 62.
Dates: Feb 7, 14, 21,28; March 21, 28; April 4, 11
Time: 7-9pm
Location: Cass Corridor Commons, 4605 Cass Ave.
Sponsors: Semester in Detroit, Detroit Equity Action Lab/Damon Keith Center for Civil Rights, University of Michigan Detroit Center, & Wayne State University Department of African American Studies.
Need transportation from Ann Arbor? Please fill out this form indicating which sessions you need transportation for. The bus will depart from the Central Campus Transit Center at 5:45pm and return to the CCTC by around 10pm. All students who are registered for the class are guaranteed a spot on the bus and do not need to fill out this form.
*Please note: you are not guaranteed a seat on the bus until we have confirmed with you over email. Many seats are reserved for students who have registered for the course.*
**NEWLY ADDED AS OF 3/6/2019***
Join Detroiters Speak on one of our off-weeks for a Know Your Rights training with the National Lawyers Guild on Thursday, March 14th from 7pm-9pm at the Cass Corridor Commons. More information and registration here.
February 7: "Public Safety" in Waawiyaataanong/Oppenago
"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
February 14: The History of Race & Policing in America
"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
February 21: Policing Black Power
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:
February 28: Policing Identities
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:
March 21: Containment & Surveillance - Shifting Borders & Boundaries
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:
- 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
March 28: The Costs of Mass Incarceration in Detroit
Recommended Readings:
