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

corpcsusb

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.

  1. Apr 17

    In Conversation with Mac Muir, Author of "Cop Cop: Breaking the Fixed System of American Policing"

    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 website:  When you think about the police, who do you think of: Do you think of one officer, or the police as an institution? From movies and TV to the real world, a police presence looms over most conflict. But if there was a defining feature of the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd, it was the collective confusion about how America got to this point. Despite fragmented media coverage about police unions, militarization, and systemic racism, the average citizen’s knowledge remained hazy on what exactly police officers had been doing all along. It’s probably different than you would expect. There is indeed a “Blue Wall of Silence”, but for the first time, it is possible to get behind it without being the police. The authors were senior investigators at the largest police oversight agency in America, tasked with policing the police in New York City. They are our eyes on the inside, and this book takes us into their world. Cop Cop lays bare the web of real cases investigated by the authors over nearly a decade working for the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). As the authors combine their unique perspectives as police misconduct investigators, they provide a new way of framing the history of policing, tethering a story that begins in the fields of Ireland and the plantations of Barbados, courses along the cobblestone paths of Charleston, South Carolina, and London, England, flows through the heart of New York City, and bleeds into the present day. As they unravel cases ranging from stops and frisks to chokeholds and shootings, they illuminate the overwhelming challenges faced by victims of police misconduct and officers alike, spurning both “Defund the Police” and “Blue Lives Matter” as they build a new argument for six concrete solutions to fix American policing. Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous  and upcoming panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound for their support of this event!

    1h 1m

  2. Apr 17

    Conversation w Father Gregory Boyle- Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times

    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, and Richard Rohr. Over the past thirty years, Gregory Boyle has transformed tens of thousands of lives through his work as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention program in the world. The program runs on two unwavering principles: 1) We are all inherently good (no exceptions), and 2) we belong to each other (no exceptions). Boyle believes that these two ideas allow all of us to cultivate a new way of seeing the world. Rather than the tribalism that excludes and punishes, this new narrative proposes a village that cherishes. Pooka, a former gang member, puts it plainly: “Here, love is our lens. It is how we see things.” In Cherished Belonging, Boyle calls back to Christianity’s origins as a spiritual movement of equality, emancipation, and peace. Early Christianity was a way of life—not a set of beliefs. Boyle’s vision of community is a space for people to join together and heal one another in a new collective living, a world dedicated to kindness as a constant and radical act of defiance. As one homie, Marcus, told a classroom filled with inner-city teenagers, “If love was a place, it would be Homeboy.” Cherished Belonging invites us to nurture the connections that are all around us and live with kindness. Boyle believes that “the answer to every question is, indeed, compassion.” Through colorful and profound stories brimming with wisdom, humor, and inspiration, we understand that love is the light inside everything. Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. In 2024, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’s highest civilian honor. He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. He is the acclaimed author of Tattoos on the Heart, Barking to the Choir, and The Whole Language. Cherished Belonging is his fourth book, and he will be donating all net proceeds to Homeboy Industries. Visit the author at HomeboyIndustries.org. Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous  and upcoming panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound for their support of this event!

    1h 1m

  3. Apr 17

    In Conversation with Dr. Yelana Sims (History, University of South Carolina)

    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 undergraduate degree in African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University and both her Ph.D. in African American Studies and graduate certificate in Public History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "Her research interests include histories of race, technology, and gender and sexuality in the U.S.. Dr. Sims is currently completing her first book manuscript, tentatively titled When the Flesh Knows It Is Flesh: Black Women, Sex Work, and Technology 1880-2000, which examines African American sex workers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their interactions with technology, focusing on how technological advancements were used to surveil and convict as well as advertise and enrich sex workers of this period. Dr. Sims argues that Black women have been historically utilized as machines of reproduction, physical labor, and meaning-making which has complicated their interactions with technological innovations. "Dr. Sims enjoys teaching courses on women’s history, African American history and culture, technology histories, and the links between all three. Her research has been supported by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Public History Program, the Harvard University Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, and others." Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound and the CSUSB Pfau Library for their support of this event! Thanks to Thinh Ly, Parker Brooks, and the Information Technology Services team!   Thanks to Pfau Library, Project Rebound, and the Information Technology Services team for making this event possible!

    1h 4m

  4. Apr 17

    The Fear-Mongering & Racial Profiling of the "China Initiative" Conversation with Gisela P Kusakawa (Executive Director, Asian American Scholars Forum) and Mike German (former FBI special agent)

    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 intellectual property theft by Chinese government agents, the program quickly devolved into a campaign of racial profiling and fearmongering that targeted U.S.-based scientists and technologists who were not even suspected of spying or intellectual property theft. The chilling effect it created within the U.S. scientific community continues to threaten American primacy in science and technology." Find two more insightful pieces about this initiative here: Caught in the Crossfire: Fears of Chinese–American Scientists (PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science) The US Crackdown on Chinese Economic Espionage is a Mess. We Have the Data to Show It. (MIT Technology Review) Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous  and upcoming panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound for their support of this event!

    1h 4m

  5. Mar 2

    Feb 25, 2026 - The Family Policing System, in Conversation with Professor Peggy Cooper Davis (NYU Law)

    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, and interdisciplinary analysis of legal pedagogy and process. Davis’s 1997 book, Neglected Stories: The Constitution and Family Values, illuminates the importance of anti-slavery traditions as guides to the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Her recent book, Enacting Pleasure, is a collection of essays exploring the social, cultural, psychological, and political implications of Carol Gilligan’s relational psychology.  She has also published more than fifty articles and book chapters, most notably in the premier journals of Harvard, Yale, NYU and Michigan law schools. For more than 10 years, Davis directed the Lawyering Program, a widely acclaimed course of experiential learning that distinguishes NYU Law School’s first-year curriculum. She now directs the Experiential Learning Lab, through which she works to develop and test progressive learning strategies and to develop professional education courses that systematically address the interpretive, interactive, ethical, and social dimensions of practice. Davis has served as chair of the board of the Russell Sage Foundation and as a director of numerous not-for-profit, for-profit, and government entities. Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous  and upcoming panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound for their support of this event!

    1h 4m

  6. Feb 23

    Feb 4, 2026 - In Conversation with Dr. Justin Randolph (History, Texas A&M), author of "Mississippi Law: Policing and Reform in America's Jim Crow Countryside" University of North Carolina Press

    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 rural countryside as ideas of race, property, and belonging reshaped the role of government in everyday life. In Mississippi Law, Justin Randolph explores rural law enforcement to explain US racial authoritarianism between the Civil War and the civil rights movement. In Jim Crow Mississippi, the force behind the police officer’s autocracy carried legacies of empire and slavery into the age of agribusiness and automobiles—from state troops and slave patrols to state troopers and highway patrols. But this is no isolated story of individual barbarism. US military and reform traditions informed ruling-class beliefs in thoughtful police improvement through both the state militia and its inheritor, the state police. "Black Mississippians fought to raise awareness and defend their loved ones against the violence spawned by paramilitary police reform. Some took up arms against police officers; others imagined a legal off-ramp to remake public safety after Jim Crow. Ultimately, the transformation of what one activist called “Mississippi Law” came with more funding and more authority for policing, a key piece of infrastructure for the age of mass incarceration that followed the civil rights revolution. Recounting the works of both famous and forgotten activists, Mississippi Law is a genealogy of Jim Crow rule and dreams of a safety that might have been and might yet be."   “This powerful history of policing in the rural South reveals the origins of law enforcement as white control of Black mobility and freedom. Amid today’s calls for police reform and abolition, this book reminds us why history matters.”—Françoise N. Hamlin, author of Crossroads at Clarksdale: The Black Freedom Struggle in the Mississippi Delta After World War II   Dr. Justin Randolph's other research projects include histories of police desegregation, rural debt peonage, the Taser, and 9-1-1. His writing has appeared in scholarly outlets like the Journal of Southern History and Southern Cultures. He has also written for popular outlets such as The Washington Post, The Mississippi Encyclopedia, and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. He has received an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship and prizes from both the Southern Historical Association and Agricultural History Society. Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound and the CSUSB Pfau Library for their support of this event! Thanks to Thinh Ly, Parker Brooks, and the Information Technology Services team!   Thanks to Pfau Library, Project Rebound, and the Information Technology Services team for making this event possible!

    1h 2m

  7. Feb 23

    Jan 28, 2026 - In Conversation with two-time Pulitzer Prize Winner, Eric Lichtblau, author of "American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate" (Hachette, 2026)

    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 Lichtblau's website:  "He is the author of the best-selling The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men, as well as Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice; and Return to the Reich: A Holocaust Refugee's Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis. He is currently working on a book on the alarming surge in hate crimes carried out by white supremacists. Lichtblau was a Washington reporter for the New York Times for fifteen years from 2002-2017 and for the the Los Angeles Times for fifteen years before that, concentrating on national security, law enforcement and legal affairs. He earned Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 as part of the New York Times team that examined President Trump's Russia ties, and in 2006 for the Times' stories revealing the existence of the secret NSA surveillance program approved by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attack.  His work has also been recognized with numerous other awards, including the Goldsmith Award, the Silver Gavel Award,  and two other Pulitzer-winning teams at the Los Angeles Times.  "He has also written during his career for The New Yorker, TIME, the Washington Post, The Intercept, and other publications. He has made frequent appearances on CNN, CSPAN, PBS, NPR, BBC, and many other media outlets. He has also given numerous speeches and made appearances at at Harvard University, Cornell, Georgetown, UCLA, the University of Southern California, the University of Oregon, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and many other academic institutions." Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). This is event #139 in our ongoing series. Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound and the CSUSB Pfau Library for their support of this event! Thanks to Thinh Ly, Parker Brooks, and the Information Technology Services team!   Thanks to Pfau Library, Project Rebound, and the Information Technology Services team for making this event possible!

    1h 2m

  8. Feb 19

    Feb 10, 2026 - Voices from Minnesota to California, with Shannon Gibney, Dr. Myrl Beam, and Cat Brooks

    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 join the conversation from Oakland. Zoom at https://csusb.zoom.us/j/388207496 Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, and activist. She is author of many books, including The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption, which received a Michael L. Printz Honor and a Minnesota Book Award; See No Color and Dream Country, both winners of Minnesota Book Awards; Where We Come From (co-authored), winner of the 2023 Carter G. Woodson Award; Sam and the Incredible African and American Food Fight, and We Miss You, George Floyd. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, Gibney teaches at Minneapolis College, where she was named Educator of the Year in 2023. She lives with her two children in Minneapolis, where she is a sanctuary school team lead with Minneapolis Families for Public Schools (MFPS). Myrl Beam is a teacher, scholar, and organizer based in South Minneapolis. He is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies Department at Macalester College. The author of the book Gay, Inc.: The Nonprofitization of Queer Politics, he is an oral historian that focuses on queer and trans movements for justice. Beam is currently working on a collaborative public history project called "The Long Fire at Lake and Minnehaha"  that uses community oral history to explore the interconnected histories of activism that gave rise to the Uprising in 2020. That project was named the winner of the 2024 Arcus Places Prize, which celebrates public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality, and the built environment.  Beam lives in South Minneapolis with his partner and two kids where he organizes with Minneapolis Families for Public Schools.  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 respond to police violence and radically transform the ways our communities are policed and incarcerated. She is the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) and the Executive Director of The Justice Teams Network. Cat was also the runner-up in Oakland’s 2018 mayoral election, facing incumbent Libby Schaaf." Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous  and upcoming panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link). Thanks to Project Rebound for their support of this event!

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About

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.

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