The timely and important topic of the inequities in our criminal-justice system as they relate to race and class will be the focus of an enlightening program at the Town Hall organized by the town’s Vision 2020 Diversity Task Group. The free event is on Saturday evening, Feb. 28. All are welcome to this panel discussion and community conversation.
The goal of “Unequal Justice: Consequences of Race and Class in Our Criminal Justice System” is to provide information about the inequities of the justice system and ideas for what might be done to improve it. While on paper the law is “equal” for all races and classes, it is unequal in practice, as race and class are critical factors in the actual practice of law.
Panelists include Fred Ryan, Arlington police chief; Peniel Joseph, Tufts University civil rights historian; Frank Rudy Cooper, Suffolk Law School professor specializing in race and masculinity, and Don Perry, parole-reform activist. oseph, of Tufts University, addressed the 2014 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Observance.
The panel will be introduced by Bonie Bagchi Williamson, co-chair of the Vision 2020 Diversity Task Group, and moderated by David Whitford, editor-at-large for Inc. magazine.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The program starts at 7 p.m. Refreshments will be available.
“We expect that the program will be an eye-opener for many people,” said Bonie Bagchi Williamson, Ph.D., Co-chair of the Diversity Task Group.
This forum is a follow-up to the December Black Lives Matter vigil.
Co-sponsors are Arlington Board of Selectmen, Arlington Human Rights Commission, Arlington International Film Festival, Arlington public schools, Calvary Church United Methodist, Center for Jewish Life Arlington-Belmont, Church of Our Saviour; Drikung Meditation Center; First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington; Highrock Covenant Church; League of Women Voters of Arlington; ManKind Project of New England; Mystic Valley Branch of the NAACP, Park Avenue Congregational Church United Church of Christ, Robbins Library, St. Agnes Parish, St. Athanasius the Great Greek Orthodox Church, St. Eulalia Parish, St. John’s Episcopal Church, St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Trinity Baptist Church and Temple Emunah, Lexington.
The Vision 2020 Diversity Task Group works to make Arlington a welcoming community for all who live, work or spend time in the town.
For more information, contact Vision 2020 Diversity Task Group member Miriam Stein at miriam.stein [at] comcast.net or 781-648-0255.
This announcement was published Monday, Feb. 9, 2015, and updated Feb. 14.
