Why They Murdered Troy Davis:
Capitalism, Racism and the Criminal Injustice System
Capitalism, Racism and the Criminal Injustice System
Thursday September 29th
7:00 pm-8:00pm
Wheatley Building
1st Floor Room 30
On Wednesday September 21st at 11:08 pm the state of Georgia carried out the state sponsored legal lynching of an innocent black man--his name was Troy Anthony Davis. Despite an international campaign to save Troy's life and an overwhelming lack of evidence the Georgia Board of Pardon and Parole denied him clemency while the Supreme Court denied him a stay of the execution. All the while president Barrack Obama refused to act.
Despite the election of a black president racism is alive and well in American society. While over 2 million people are incarcerated inside America's prison system almost 50% are African American despite the fact that blacks only make up 12% of the population. At the same time white police regularly get away with brutalizing poor communities of color and even murdering poor black people. The modern criminal injustice system has become a new system of racial control- a new Jim Crow.
Come join the UMB ISO in a discussion on institutionalized racism today in America's criminal injustice system in the age of the Obama. Hear the case for and join in a discussion of why we need immediate reforms but ultimately a revolutionary re ordering of society if we hope to tear down America's brutally racist and anti-poor criminal injustice system.
Suggested material to help prepare for the discussion!
From SocialistWorker.org:
Murdered by the American Injustice System
What Has Obama Done for African-Americans?
From International Socialist Review:
Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs: Racism in America Today
An excellent talk on racism, the war on drugs, and the criminal injustice system by law professor and anti-prison activist Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
