Intersecting Oppressions: Race, Class and Inequity in the US
As millions of people are out of work, facing eviction, and without health insurance, it's clear that America's capitalist structures are catastrophically ill-equipped to support people through the pandemic. And these same structures have come under scrutiny with recent protests against racist police brutality, as looting and destruction of private property have—in many spheres—yielded a bigger outcry than the murder of Black people.
So, how can we create lasting social and economic change? How can we best streamline our demands for a society that allows everyone to live a healthy, dignified life? Join us for a conversation on the intersection of race and class, capitalism and white supremacy, in which we consider how to effectively critique and overturn destructive systems, and propose new directions.
The event will be streamed live from BPL's YouTube channel and on this page. Please register and sign up to receive news about other BPL virtual programming
Confirmed Panelists:
Kumar Rao is Senior Counsel at the Center for Popular Democracy, where he directs racial justice policy work, including supporting partner organizations and elected officials in the fight for racial equity and criminal justice transformation at the local, state, and federal levels. Kumar is presently also a Scholar with the Institute for Social Policy & Understanding, for whom he led a major study into the disparate legal and media treatment that suspects of ideological violence receive based on their perceived racial and religious identity. A former litigator and public defender, he has represented thousands of clients in state and federal court, in both criminal and civil matters, and has counseled offices on the delivery of legal services and effective client representation practices. Kumar holds a J.D. cum laude from New York University School of Law and a B.B.A with honors from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Chase Madar is an attorney, author and teacher in New York. As a former staff attorney at Make the Road New York, he worked as an advocate, researcher and lobbyist towards taking police personnel out of city schools. He has written about criminal law and security for the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Guardian and Al Jazeera as well as for Le Monde diplomatique, the London Review of Books, the American Conservative, Jacobin and elsewhere. He is also the author of The Passion of Chelsea Manning: The Story behind the Wikileaks Whistleblower (Verso). He has taught courses on law and violence at NYU Gallatin, St. Francis and Wallkill Correctional Facility through the NYU Prison Education Program
Alexander Zevin is an assistant professor of history at City University of New York, College of Staten Island, and an editor at New Left Review. His first book, Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist, was published in November 2019.
Derecka Purnell is a human rights lawyer, writer, and organizer. She works to end police and prison violence by providing legal assistance, research, and trainings to community based organizations through an abolitionist framework. Derecka is currently a columnist at The Guardian and Deputy Director of Spirit of Justice Center at Union Theological Seminary.
