Join us for a screening and discussion of "Breaking Barriers," a short film

Danny Murillo, who is featured in the film and is a co-founder of the Underground Scholars at Berkeley will join us to discuss the film.

Notes below from the film website, and find the Berkeley Underground Scholars Initiative here.

"Breaking Barriers follows a group of system-impacted students at Cal-Berkeley who face significant challenges as formerly incarcerated and system-impacted individuals pursuing higher education. The film also highlights the importance of policy change to dismantle systemic barriers and support education for the formerly incarcerated."

This event is supported by CSUSB's Project Rebound, with thanks to Dr. Annika Anderson (Sociology).

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).

In Conversation with Drs. Madeline Stenersen (Psychology, Saint Louis University) and Cassandra Young (Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies; University of Denver)

Join us on Zoom for a discussion with Drs. Madeline Stenersen (Psychology, Saint Louis University) and Cassandra Young (Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies; University of Denver). Drs. Young and Stenersen are experts in a wide range of topics related to gender, race, and law enforcement, including the criminalization of victims of sex trafficking, and police harassment and violence toward sex workers.

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology).

Join us for a conversation with Cat Brooks on the eradication of state violence and a pathway to true public safety.

Cat Brooks is host of Law & Disorder on KPFA (link) and a long-time performer, organizer, and activist. She played a central role in the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant, and spent the last decade working with impacted communities and families to rapidly respond to police violence and radically transform the ways our communities are policed and incarcerated. She is the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) and the Executive Director of The Justice Teams Network. Cat was also the runner-up in Oakland’s 2018 mayoral election, facing incumbent Libby Schaaf."

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology).

Join us in conversation with UCLA Professor of History and Chicana/o Studies, Dr. Eric Avila.

Dr. Avila is an urban cultural historian, studying the intersections of racial identity, urban space, and cultural representation in twentieth century America. He is the current holder of the Waldo E. Neikirk Term Chair in Undergraduate Education at UCLA. After earning his doctorate at UC Berkeley, Dr. Avila joined UCLA in 1997 where he has taught Chicano Studies and History, and holds an affiliation with the Department of Urban Planning. He is the author of Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (UC Press, 2004). In 2014, he published The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City (U. of Minnesota). For Oxford University's series, he wrote American Cultural History: A Very Short Introduction (2018).

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Lydia Pelot-Hobbs (University of Kentucky, link).

Recording Here

"We Deserve Better": Contesting Racialized Sexual and Gender Policing

This talk traces the New Orleans grassroots organization BreakOUT!'s "We Deserve Better" campaign (2010-2013) to reign in the everyday racial and gender profiling and state sanctioned sexual violence of the New Orleans Police Department. This case highlights the centrality of policing racialized gender and sexuality in the contemporary carceral state and how struggles over everyday criminalization have served as a pivot point for the future of post-Katrina New Orleans.

Find Dr. Pelot-Hobbs's new book, Prison Capital: Mass Incarceration and Struggles for Abolition Democracy in Louisiana, here at the publisher's website (link) and here at Amazon (link).

Thank you to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for sponsoring this event along with Pfau Library.

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).

Join us on Zoom for a conversation with author and CSUSB alum (Sociology), Dr. Keeonna Harris about her new book, Mainline Mama: A Memoir (HarperCollins, 2025). Dr. Harris recounts her experience as a “mainline mama, a parent facing the impossible task of raising a child—while still growing up herself—with an incarcerated partner." Learn more about Dr. Harris here.

From the memoir publisher's website: "In this devastating and triumphant memoir, Keeonna recalls her harrowing journey as a Mainline Mama, from learning to overcome the exhausting difficulties of navigating the carceral system in the United States, to transforming herself into an advocate for other women like her—the predominantly Black and brown women left behind to pick up the pieces of their families and fractured lives. Keeonna speaks frankly about the depression and suicidal thoughts that threatened to defeat her, how she learned to rebuild her broken relationship with a mother that lost trust in her, and how time eased the shame, guilt, and stigma of being a young Black teen mom with a partner behind bars. She offers inspiration and solace, showing how to create moments of beauty, humanity, and love in a place designed to break spirits, such as picking the perfect wedding dress for a ceremony in a state prison visiting room. Mainline Mama is about creating self-love and community—crucial acts of radical resistance against a prison industrial complex that is designed to dehumanize and to separate and shut away incarcerated individuals and their loved ones from the world."

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).

Join us on Zoom for a discussion with Dr. Madeleine Hamlin (website), Assistant Professor of Geography at Colgate University (faculty profile). Dr. Hamlin's work focuses on housing, policing, race, class, and punishment in U.S. cities. Some of her writings can be found at this link. In addition to her many publications, she currently has a book project under contract with University of Chicago Press titled Policing the Project: Crime, Carcerality, and Chicago Public Housing.

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).

Join us in conversation with Chief Amy Barden (Ed.D) of Seattle's Community Assisted Response & Engagement (CARE) Program

Learn more about the CARE Program at its website here, and find a PBS news item about the program and Chief Barden here.

From the above news item:

"The new CARE Department — short for Community Assisted Response and Engagement — was born out of the 2020 protests against police violence. It is modeled on other cities’ experiments with sending unarmed civilian responders alongside or instead of uniformed police to answer calls about mental or behavioral health crises. The idea is that people in crisis are often better served by social workers than by police officers who are not trained in behavioral health and whose interactions with people in crisis can lead to fatal shootings."

Chief Barden is quoted: “I do believe that we can reimagine how we respond to and how we prevent human suffering... I believe we can redesign our systems to better support positive change and healing in individual lives.” 

Zoom link: https://tinyurl.com/csusb-race-and-policing-2025

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).

Join us for a discussion with Drs. Paloma Villegas (CSUSB Sociology) and Dylan Rodriguez (Dept. of Black Study & Media and Cultural Studies). Drs. Villegas and Rodriguez are experts in a wide range of topics related to race, ethnicity, migration, colonialism, law enforcement, and the intersections of these and other themes.

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).

Please join us for a conversation with Brennan Center Fellow and former FBI Special Agent, Michael German about his new book, Policing White Supremacy: The Enemy Within (The New Press, 2024). Find it here from the publisher, and here from Amazon.

Series organizers (alphabetical) are Amber Broaden (CSUSB and CSU Dominguez Hills, Psychology), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Michael German (Brennan Center for Justice), Robie Madrigal (Pfau Library), Dr. Jeremy Murray (CSUSB History), Matt Patino (Crafton Hills College Adjunct Faculty), Dr. Mary Texeira (CSUSB Sociology). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).