Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Sept. 10, 2014, edition 1 / Page 1
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A - - 7 VOL. 61, ISSUE 3 I WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 10, 2014 I THEBLUEBANNER.NET Weekly Calendar Sept. 10-16 Sept. 10 Annual Art Facul ty Exhibition Owen 101 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. GRE class Owen 202 6-9 p.m. LSAT class Owen 203 6- 9 p.m. Blue Ridge Or chestra open re hearsal Reuter Center 102 - The Manheimer Room 7 - 9 p.m. Photography Group meeting Reuter Center 206 7- 9:30 p.m. Sept. 11 Banner Finance Phillips Hall 114 8:30 - 10 a.m. Annual Art Facul ty Exhibition Owen 101 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. STEM lecture “New Develop ments in Space- Based Astronomy” Reuter Center 206 4:30 - 6 p.m. Sept. 12 Annual Art Eacul- ty Exhibition Owen 101 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Human Rights and Global Justice Carmichael Hu manities Lecture Hall 11:25 a.m. - 12:35 p.m. Sept. 13 Confident Com muter Class Bun combe Bike Edu cation Sherrill Center 442 H & W Confer ence Room 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. Hillbilly lecture series Reuter Center 102 The Manheimer Room 2 - 4 p.m. Sept. 14 Carolina’ Nature Photographers As sociation portfolio presentations Reuter Center 206 5:30 - 8 p.m. Sept. 15 Annual Art Eacul- ty Exhibition Owen 101 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Medieval India Lipinsky Hall Au ditorium 11:25 a.m.- 12:35 p.m. Department Chairs and Program Di rectors Meeting Highsmith Univer sity Union 221- 223 3:30 - 5 p.m. Sept. 16 Annual Art Eacul- ty Exhibition Owen 101 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Red Cross blood drive Highsmith Univer sity Union 221- 223 ' 11 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Ferguson forum Ignites debate Photo by Amanda Cline - Staff Writer Marcus Harvey speaks during the UNC Asheville discussion panel on Ferguson. Faculty discuss racism in America VALERIE MCMURRAY vrmcmurr@unca.edu - Asst. News Editor Four UNC Asheville faculty members ad dressed the significance of Michael Brown’s death, the prevalence of racism and structural violence in America during a discus sion panel in Highsmith Union Sept. 3. “Yes, the murder of Brown is tragic. But what is also apparent to me — I think this will likely be come — with respect to this country’s recent his tory, yet another failed opportunity for America to frankly examine its his tory,’’ said Marcus Har vey, assistant professor of religious studies. Harvey also said the difficulty in feeling opti mistic about as event such as Ferguson stems from the way these events are discussed. “This society has a marked tendency to seize on these events when they happen in a very spec- tacularized way, to talk in a very sort of superfi cial, non-threatening way about race — in a way that really doesn’t go any where at all,” he said. Harvey said Americans are socialized into a pat tern of memory recon struction that dismisses victims of the dominant culture, a pattern he called “the myth of American exceptionalism.” “What happened in Fer guson is not surprising. It’s very much in keeping with this country’s social history,” Harvey said. “It’s to be expected.” Immediately after Har vey’s speech, an audi ence member challenged Harvey’s use of the word “murder” in describing Michael Brown’s death. “I’d like to respond to the racially-motivated word ‘murder’ that one of your speakers used,” an audience member said. “I don’t believe the grand jury’s back yet on wheth er or not this was an un lawful killing.” Harvey said the use of the word still remains true given the dominate narra tive of American society. Dwight Mullen, a po litical science professor, called for “a resolution to the tension between being black and being Ameri can.” Mullen recalled an in cident from his youth in Los Angeles in which a white police officer was accused of the wrongful death of a black citizen and acquitted by an all white jury - an all-too-fa- miliar story, he said. “We know that commu nity policing works. Why would you have officers in an area that don’t know the people they’re stop ping — let alone shoot ing?” Mullen said. Growing up in LA. Mullen said many people distrusted the police'and the media. “We treated all of them the same, as violators of our territory,” he said. As a teen, Mullen real ized he had to get out of the troubled city of LA before he got into trouble himself. “It got to a point, by the time I was an undergrad, I had two different ward robes. That’s how far the contrast goes. I had two different vocabularies. I lived two different lives,” he said. “I just didn’t know if the one would last long enough until I could get to this other one.” Mulled said, at the uni versity level individuals realize that getting out of areas facing racial tension isn’t where the issues end. The ultimate goal should be constructing alterna tive futures. Mullen left LA, but his children inherited , some of the same struggles. “Watching them go through the same things I went though, and here I sit in little oF Asheville, thinking I was safely out of LA, that ain’t gonna make it. Watching them get stopped by the police at the same ages I was stopped by the police,” Mullen said. Inequality in the crim inal justice system often results from institution al policies, according to Keith Bramlett, a sociol ogy and anthropology lecturer. He said policies aren’t created with' malicious intent, but in many cases, factors like joblessness affect more people of col or than white people, re sulting in comparatively more African-Americans denied bail. In Ferguson, Afri can-Americans make up 67 percent of the popula tion. In 2013, blacks com prised 93 percent of the arrests. In a police force of 53 officers, three are African-American. Bramlett said disparity is an indicator to examine the policies for neutral in tentions gone awry. “The police subculture as exists, often referred to as the Blue Curtain, is SEE FORUM ON PAGE 2
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