Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration I

I started to type this entry and it got to be so long that I was forced to separate it into two entries.  In the first I will describe the inception of last week’s events.  And in the second I will describe the events themselves.  I know I promised that the entries would be short, but you have to bear with me on this one.

Last week was a very interesting week here at Roger Williams.  But before I tell you about last week I have to talk about last year.  You will see why very soon, trust me.  You may recall the release of a video of a Hispanic gentleman being repeatedly struck in the face by two members of the LAPD after having been subdued.  This was followed closely by the shameful display of recklessness on the part of the NYPD last November.  A young man named Sean Bell lost his life on the very day he was to be married.  When I saw these incidents, I became overwhelmed with disgust.  So I did what I usually do when I am overwhelmed with disgust or any visceral emotion for that matter, I sat down and started to write.

The individuals subjected to excessive force, police harassment, and other civil rights violations are not the only victims of these incidents.  When members of the community see these incidents on the news, we tend to overestimate the prevalence of this behavior.  Some of us may even assume that it is somehow part of a subculture of law enforcement and that this behavior is accepted by all of its members.  These perceptions create a blanket distrust of law enforcement, particularly in communities of color.  That in turn makes it difficult for good police officers to do their jobs effectively in these communities.  It almost becomes a vicious cycle as they say.

I am a future legal advocate among other future legal advocates.  Some of us will choose to focus our advocacy on low income communities or communities of color.  Some of us will have professional relationships with the law enforcement establishment.  That makes police misconduct and its disproportionate impact on people of color a rather relevant topic of discussion to the study of law.  And it occurred to me that these issues are very infrequently discussed in our classrooms.  So I wanted to create a dialogue among members of the law school community about the interaction between the police and communities of color. 

I passed the idea along to Lorraine Lalli in the Office of Diversity and Outreach in the form of a detailed written proposal.  And she thought it was a good idea to make this topic the theme of the Law School’s second annual, week-long celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy.  So we did.