Joe Gutierrez | Office of Strategic Communication | (909) 537-5007 | joeg@csusb.edu
Cal State San Bernardino’s Conversations on Race and Policing, led by guest speaker Joshua Aiken, will reexamine the 2016 death of Korryn Gaines, a Baltimore woman who was fatally shot by Baltimore County SWAT officers.
The presentation, “Policing Proof: Korryn Gaines, Body Cameras, and Anti-Blackness as a Scene,” free and open to the public, will take place on Zoom beginning at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 14. It can be accessed from a PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android at https://csusb.zoom.us/j/97960458784.
“This talk considers the killing of Korryn Gaines by the Baltimore County SWAT team in 2016, in the context of social media sites deactivating Gaines’ accounts as she tried to livestream the events,” the abstract of Aiken’s talk reads. “I consider how especially since the 1990s, racialized-gendered notions of documentation, culpability, and proof have played an integral role in legitimizing state-sanctioned harm.”
Aiken is a J.D./Ph.D. candidate in history and African American studies at Yale University, where his research focuses on the relationship between race, violence and the rule of law. He received master’s degrees in forced migration studies and in history from the University of Oxford and previously worked as a Policy Fellow at the Prison Policy Initiative.
Conversations on Race and Policing, also known as CoRP, began in the aftermath of the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd while in the custody of four Minneapolis, Minn., police officers. A video of the incident posted on social media led to widespread protests, the firing of four police officers, the arrest and conviction of one officer on a second-degree murder and related charges, the other three on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder – and a spotlight worldwide on race and policing.
The series has featured scholars, journalists, law enforcement officers, lawyers, activists, artists, educators, administrators and others from throughout the nation who shared their experience and expertise on issues related to race and policing.
More than 50 forums have taken place, and video recordings of the sessions are posted online on the Conversations on Race and Policing Lecture Series Archive.
The fall lineup of Conversations on Race and Policing, each at 1 p.m. on Wednesdays, include:
- Sept. 21: “Police Reform and Federal Consent Decrees,” presented by Zachary Powell, assistant professor of criminal justice, CSUSB School of Criminology and Criminal Justice;
- Sept. 28: “Indian Boarding Schools: Assemblymember James Ramos in Conversation with Robert Levi Jr. and Dr. Daisy Ocampo.” Ramos, a CSUSB alumnus, represents the district that includes the university; Levi is CSUSB’s inaugural Elder/Culture Bearer in Residence; and Ocampo is a CSUSB assistant professor of history; and
- Oct. 5: “What Is Accountability?: A History of Philadelphia's Police Advisory Board,” with Aaron Bekemeyer, a lecturer in modern U.S. history at Harvard University.
The series is organized by CSUSB students Marlo Brooks, Zoralynn Oglesby, Evelyn Jimenez, Jade McDonald, Jaime Castro and Connie Cornejo. Along with the students and Texeira are Jeremy Murray, CSUSB associate professor of history; Robie Madrigal, public affairs/communication specialist for the CSUSB John M. Pfau Library; and community member Stan Futch, president of the Westside Action Group
For more information, contact Robie Madrigal at rmadriga@csusb.edu or Jeremy Murray at jmurray@csusb.edu.
Also visit the Conversations on Race and Policing webpage.
