Did you know that many of the misdemeanor laws in the Jim Crow era were created to target previously enslaved people? And that they are still used today to arrest disproportionately colored and poor people, often with dire consequences for those arrested?
Robert Greenwald explores this issue in his documentary Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem, which the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica will show in partnership with the Committee for Racial Justice, the Santa Monica Coalition for Police Reform, and the Human Relations Council Santa Monica Bay Area at 2:00 p.m. on October 17th.
Following the screening, Michele Wittig, organizer, Santa Monica Coalition for Police Reform and LWVSM member, will moderate a panel discussion and question-and-answer session. She hopes the video will “be a stepping stone to open discussion about how we can tackle the traces of past moral misconduct present in our current offense system.
Wittig includes Angela Scott, Santa Monica Public Safety Reform and Oversight Commissioner, Committee for Racial Justice Steering Committee member and LWVSM member, and Natalya Zernitskaya, President of the LWVSM.
“Systemic racism is at the center of most of the pressing problems we face today, including problems with our criminal justice and public security systems. We can see how damaging the effects of our current criminal justice system have been on the people in our own local community, and we have the opportunity to aid our community’s healing process by shedding light on what doesn’t work so that we can create a criminal can a judicial system that really offers justice to everyone, ”said Zernitskaya.
This is a virtual event and is hosted on Zoom. Please RSVP at https://bit.ly/AMP101721
Natalya Zernitskaya President of the Santa Monica League of Women Voters
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