Conversations on Race and Policing - California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB)

Conversations on Race and Policing - California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB)

This series began in response to the police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. In this work, we hope to explore, enlighten, and engage ourselves and the campus community with ongoing panel discussions, lectures, presentations, and film screenings related to the history and current context of race, policing, and criminal justice. We invite leading scholars, journalists, lawyers, healthcare professionals, current and veteran members of law enforcement, faith-based leaders, the formerly incarcerated, artists, activists, students, and more to share their experience, expertise, and passion with our university community and beyond. Our aim is to have an ongoing conversation about the way criminal justice operates – especially in communities of color – in order to empower and inform our students, faculty, staff, and residents of the Inland Empire. We have hosted over 110 weekly events to date. Please see our Lecture Series Archive (https://www.csusb.edu/corp/lecture-series-archive) for past events and recordings, and plan to join us online for Upcoming Events (https://www.csusb.edu/corp). Recordings of most events will be posted on their event pages after editing. We recognize that these are long and sometimes difficult conversations, as we continue the series into 2024-25, our fifth year.

Episodes

October 26, 2026 • 58 mins

Join us in conversation with Cat Brooks, performer, organizer, activist, and radio host of "Law & Disorder" (KPFA).

From her website (link). "Cat Brooks is host of Law & Disorder on KPFA (link) and a long-time performer, organizer, and activist. She played a central role in the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant, and spent the last decade working with impacted communities and families to rapidly ...

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Healing After Gang Violence: In Conversation with Mia Arredondo and Edwin Cruz

Mia Arredondo (pictured, on left) lost her older brother to gang violence when she was 12 years old. Edwin Cruz (pictured, on right) was sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) at 17 for a gang-related crime that resulted in someone's death, and served 17 years before being resentenced and released in 2024. Together they'll talk...

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What Does True Justice Look Like? In Conversation with Gunner Johnson and Brett May

Gunner Johnson (pictured, on right) survived a home invasion robbery in which he was shot twice and a close friend was killed while sleeping in the next room. He later committed a crime himself, an action for which he takes full responsibility and understands to be connected to the injuries and trauma he experienced as a vi...

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Dr. Scott Kurashige is an award-winning scholar, writer, and community activist whose work explores race, politics, and social movements in U.S. history. He currently serves as President of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Foundation and is the author of The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles (Princeton, 2008), and coauthor, with Grace Lee Boggs, of The Next Americ...
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From his website: "Kundnani is a writer interested in race, Islamophobia, surveillance, political violence, and radicalism. A good introduction to his overall political perspective is this article, first published in the Guardian: 'There are two kinds of antiracism.'

"Born in London, Kundnani moved to New York in 2010 and now lives in Philadelphia. The Guardian has described him as 'one of Britain’s best political writers.' K...

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Dr. Julian Go is Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago where he is also a Faculty Affiliate in the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture and The Committee on International Relation. He is also a Fellow of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory and former President of the Social Science History Association.    His recent book, Policing Empires Militarization, Race, and the Imperial Boomeran...
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Join us for a conversation with Kristian Williams, author of Policing the Progressive City: Portland, Oregon, From Settlement to Uprising (AK Press, 2026), among many other books and articles.

From the publisher's website: "This is a story of Portland, Oregon, from an outpost of the Hudson’s Bay Company, through its founding as a city and the long and lively twentieth century shaped by organized crime, labor unrest, and waves...

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Dr. Caroline Parker (University College London) is a Lecturer of Anthropology of Professional Practice, Deputy Director of the Social Data Institute, and Founder of Learning in Prison.   Her recent book, Carceral Citizens: Labour and Confinement in Puerto Rico (U. Chicago Press, 2025), "offers an ethnographic portrait of therapeutic communities in Puerto Rico, the oldest colony in the Americas." Dr. Parker's book was shor...
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A conversation with Mac Muir, co-author of "Cop Cop: Breaking the Fixed System of American Policing" (2025).

Mac Muir was raised in Oakland, California. From 2016 to 2022 he rose to become a Supervising Investigator at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board. From 2023 to 2025, Mac served as Executive Director of Oakland’s Community Police Review  Agency.

Book Description for Cop Cop, from the publisher's websi...

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A conversation with Father Gregory Boyle, author of Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times (Simon and Schuster, 2024)

Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/csusb-corp2026

From the book's webpage: 

In a world increasingly marked by division and discord, beloved Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle offers a transformative vision of community and compassion—a perfect message for readers of Anne Lamott, Mary Oliver...

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A conversation with Dr. Yelana Sims is Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. She earned her PhD from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in African American Studies with a Graduate Certificate in Public History; her B.A. is from Vanderbilt University in African American and Diaspora Studies.  

From her faculty page: "A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Dr. Yelana Sims received her undergradu...

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Join us in conversation with Gisela Perez Kusakawa, Executive Director of the Asian American Scholar Forum, and Mike German, formerly of the Brennan Center and the ACLU, and former FBI special agent.

Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/csusb-corp2026

Our guests will discuss the so-called "China Initiative," launched in the first Trump administration. Of this effort, German wrote, "Ostensibly designed to combat economic espionage and in...

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Peggy Cooper Davis is John S. R. Shad Professor of Lawyering and Ethics Emerita at New York University. She joined NYU in September 1983 after having served for three years as a judge of the Family Court of the State of New York and having engaged in the practice and administration of law during the preceding 10 years. Her scholarly work has been influential in the areas of child welfare, constitutional rights of family liberty, an...

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Dr. Justin Randolph is Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M.   His recent book, Mississippi Law: Policing and Reform in America's Jim Crow Countryside (University of North Carolina Press, 2025), examines how American police power shaped fights for Black freedom.    "In the segregated American South, policing was war. Rampant police violence came to the back roads and cattle pastures of America’s...
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Join us for a conversation with two-time Pulitzer prize winning author and investigative reporter, Eric Lichtblau, who writes about national security and law enforcement affairs. Find his website here, and find his most recent book here: American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate (Hachette, 2026). Lichtblau was featured in an extended interview on Jan. 7 on NPR's Fresh Air at this link.

From Lichtbl...

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Tuesday, February 10, 1pm PST (3pm CST) Join us in the Conversations on Race and Policing series for a discussion with author, Shannon Gibney, and scholar, Dr. Myrl Beam, two voices from Minnesota who have experience in movements for justice and can help us understand recent developments there including mass detentions and killing of protestors by federal agents. Veteran activist and artist, Cat Brooks, will also ...

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Dr. Bocar A. Ba is Assistant Professor of Economics at Duke University, and Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is an applied microeconomist studying law enforcement, crime, and inequality. His research examines policing as a critical entry point into the legal system, particularly for marginalized communities, and explores how different stakeholders—police, civilians, unions, media, firms, and polic...

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In Conversation with Dr. Brianna Nofil (William & Mary), author of "The Migrant's Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration" (Princeton, 2024)   Thanks to Pfau Library, Project Rebound, and the Information Technology Services team for making this event possible!   Dr. Brianna Nofil is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at William & Mary.   Her recent book, The Migrant's Jail: An American H...
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In Conversation with Dr. Menika Dirkson (Morgan State), author of "Hope and Struggle in the Policed City: Black Criminalization and Resistance in Philadelphia" (NYU Press, 2024)   Dr. Menika Dirkson is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Geography at Morgan State University in Maryland. Dr. Dirkson is a Philadelphia native, and earned her PhD in History at Temple University. Find out more about her upcoming wo...
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In Conversation with Dr. Stefan M. Bradley (Amherst College), author of "If We Don't Get It: A People's History of Ferguson" (The New Press Press, 2025)        Dr. Stefan M. Bradley is Charles Hamilton Houston '15 Professor of Black Studies and History, and is the Department Chair of Black Studies at Amherst College. This event will be hosted and moderated by Dr. Marc Robinson of the CSUSB History Department. &n...
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