The university’s ongoing dialogue about race and law enforcement will resume on Wednesday, Nov. 18, with the program “South Asia at a Crossroads with BLM: Caste, Color, and Intersections of Identity.”

The panel discussion will take place at 4 p.m. as part of the next Conversations on Race and Policing series. The event will take place virtually and can be accessed from a PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android at https://csusb.zoom.us/j/97960458784.

As uprisings calling for an end to police violence, anti-Black racism and white supremacy demand all of our attention, the experiences of South Asians can offer another opening to critically think about the mechanisms of racial oppression. South Asians have been shaped by  policing and surveillance systems, Islamophobia, caste-based violence, and racial capitalism. At the same time they have found complicity within these structures.

In addition to examining these tensions, the panelists will stress the urgency of uplifting the Movement for Black Lives and highlight the ways South Asian solidarity efforts intersect with the collective struggles of oppressed people around the world.

The panelists for the program will be:

  • Hareem Khan, assistant professor of cultural anthropology and ethnic studies at CSUSB;
  • Abhilasha Srivastava, assistant professor of economics at CSUSB and a member of Dollar & Sense Collective, Boston;
  • Rajrani Kalra, professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies and an affiliated faculty in master of social sciences and globalization at CSUSB;
  • Bilal Nasir, postdoctoral fellow in the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies at Pomona College;
  • Dhruv Khurana, adjunct professor in the Department of Economics at CSUSB; and
  • Benson Neethipudi, master of public administration ’21 candidate (Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs).

The panel will be moderated by Isabel Huacuja Alonso, assistant professor in the Department of History at CSUSB.

Conversations on Race and Policing began in the aftermath of the May 25 death of George Floyd while in the custody of four Minneapolis, Minn., police officers. A video of the incident posted on social media has led to widespread protests, the firing of four police officers, the arrest of one officer on a second-degree murder charge, the other three on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder – and a spotlight worldwide on race and policing.

Previous forums also are posted online (more recordings will soon be available for viewing) on the CSUSB History Club Lecture Series YouTube channel.

The ongoing Conversations on Race and Policing series is hosted by CSUSB students Marlo Brooks and Yvette Relles-Powell.

The series is organized by Brooks and Relles-Powell, CSUSB faculty members Mary Texeira (sociology) and Jeremy Murray (history), Robie Madrigal, public affairs/communication specialist for the CSUSB John M. Pfau Library, and community member Stan Futch, president of the Westside Action Group.  

Upcoming Conversations on Race and Policing are “Guerilla Warfare from the Street to the Courtroom,” at 4 p.m. on Nov. 25, and “Suing the Police and Qualified Immunity,” at 4 p.m. on Dec. 2. Both programs will be on Zoom.

For more information, contact Robie Madrigal at rmadriga@csusb.edu or Jeremy Murray at jmurray@csusb.edu.

Conversations on Race and Policing event flier, Nov. 18