RadioActive 12/11/14

Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Issue: Environmental and Social Justice

Program Topic: Institutional racism : the historical and present day context to the recent police killings of unarmed African-Americans Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Akai Gurley.

Key Discussion Points:

a) Today we look at institutional racism : the historical and present day context to the recent police killings of unarmed African-Americans Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Akai Gurley.

b) Professor Samuel Roberts discusses “the war on drugs”, mass incarceration, the para-militarization of police forces, police harassment, the trend to arrest people of color for economic infractions, like unpaid parking tickets, and the social movement response.

c) The director of the Maine ACLU looks at the racial breakdown of arrests made in Maine. According to a recent USA Today report, African-Americans in Auburn are 4 times more likely to be arrested then the white population. In South Portland, the rate is 3.5 times higher. Bangor is 3.2, Lewiston 2.8 and Portland is 2.6 times higher.

Guests:
Samuel K Roberts, Director of the the Columbia University Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS), Associate Professor of History(Columbia University School of Arts and Sciences), Associate Professor of Sociomedical Science (Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health) and Associate Professor of African-American Studies. samuelkroberts.com/

Alison Beyea, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine www.aclumaine.org/

Related story: www.pressherald.com/2014/12/10/students-try-to-raise-their-voices-but-protest-interrupted/