Special Pleading: On the Identity Politics of "Blue Lives Matter"
"Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards is currently poised to approve House Bill 953, which the State Senate approved 33-3 last Tuesday, following a 91-0 approval in the State House. Known as the 'Blue Lives Matter' bill, HB953 will extend the list of 'protected classes' recognized by existing Louisiana hate crimes legislation to include law enforcement professionals and firefighters. In other words, present or past employment as a cop (or a prison guard, a traffic officer, etcetera) will now stand alongside 'race, age, gender, religion, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, or ancestry' as a category of identity awarded special protection against victimization under the law.

Although Louisiana, like most other states, already penalizes people for assaulting police or interfering with their activities, HB953 will mandate up to an additional five years of jail for felonies committed against police and their property, up to six months for misdemeanors, and escalated fines for both."

Imprisonment in the U.S. in the Era of "Black Lives Matter":
A Summer Event at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies

Thursday, August 13, 4 to 6:30 pm
2nd Floor Ericson Seminar Room, Canadian Gallery
14 Queen's Park Crescent West

Michelle Brown, from the University of Tennessee, editor of Crime, Media, and Culture, will give a talk on "the problem of life and death in American criminal justice", based on ethnographic and media analysis research on local and national community-based movements such as Black Lives Matter.  Her question is: "What does it mean to theorize mass incarceration through its counter-movements?"

Then, filmmaker and PhD candidate Brett Story will show an excerpt from her film-in-progress "The prison in twelve landscapes", described as "a non-fiction film about the prison from the places we least expect to find it: an anti-sex offender pocket park in LA, a congregation of ex-incarcerated chess players shut out of the formal labor market, the overnight buses that carry visitors to far-away prisons, and an Appalachian cola town betting its future on the promise of prison jobs."

Moderator: Phil Goodman