Politics

Discussion At Wright Museum Tonight Will Explore Race And Policing

September 05, 2014, 6:07 AM

The issue up for discussion at the Charles H. Wright Museum is timely and touchy -- "Race and Policing: 1967 Detroit to 2014 Ferguson."

That's the provocative focus of First Friday Forum, a monthly "community conversation" hosted by the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. The free event Sept. 5 runs from 6-9 p.m. at the African American history museum's multi-purpose room.

This week's forum, part of an ongoing program of the Detroit-based civil rights group, comes at an opportune time for "honest conversations about race and policing" in the aftermath of Michael Brown's death Aug. 9 during a police stop in Ferguson, Mo., says Steve Spreitzer, who became the Roundtable's president and CEO last month. (A profile is in Sunday's Free Press.)


Jorge Chinea, a Wayne State historian, is on Friday's panel.

"it is important to be aware that our region, like St. Louis, has a long and difficult history of structural racism and segregation that has created homogenous suburban communities," Spreitzer says in a two-page event announcement. "While the City of Detroit Police Department has come a long way to reflect the citizens they protect and serve, suburban communities in Metro Detroit and throughout Michigan are failing to respect their diversifying citizenry by hiring and retaining a diverse and culturally competent police force."

ACLU staff attorney Mark Fancher will moderate Friday's panel of three speakers:

  • Jorge Chinea, an associate professor of history at Wayne State since 1996. He also is director of its Center for Latino/Latina and Latin American Studies. 
  • Victor Green, a former an inspector of internal affairs and community relations for the Kalamazoo Police Department, who has been WSU's community relations director since 2005.
  • Yusef Shakur, a 41-year-old Detroit activist, author and businessman who was in Ferguson last week. Earlier, he served prison time on an assault charge and changed his name from Joseph Ruffin while behind bars.

Yusef Shakur of Detroit will reflect on his criminal justice experiences.

In his statement giving context for the forum, which is subtitled ": Illuminating Our Past to Understand Our Present," Spreitzer says:

We know Detroit’s suburban police departments struggle to recruit, hire and retain officers of color. . . . But we also know when leaders value diversity and inclusion, they find ways to make it happen.

Diversity in a department matters; so does leadership in a community to obtain that diversity. It is vital that all people in a community feel welcome and are treated fairly.

One point of discussion will involve the need for "culturally competent police officers," as he puts it. 

Effective and sustainable cultural competency would cause officers to understand their own biases, both conscious and unconscious, and create ways for them to continue working at this process of discovery throughout their careers. A culturally competent officer would understand something about racial disparity and inequity, which have deep roots and impact upon both community members and police officers.

-- Alan Stamm


Read more:  Michigan Roundtable


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