First-person retelling of 2014 Ferguson uprising through a poet’s eyes on Feb. 14

The retelling from a poet’s perspective of the Ferguson, Mo., uprising in the wake of the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer will be the focus of the next Conversations on Race and Policing, 1 p.m. on Feb. 14.

Register for the talk, “Bittering the Wound: A Conversation and Poetry Reading with Jacqui Germain,” online for the link to the livestream on Zoom, which is free and open to the public.

In this program, presented by the Cal State San Bernardino John M. Pfau Library, St. Louis-based writer, journalist and poet Jacqui Germain will read from and discuss her debut collection of poetry, “Bittering the Wound.” The book’s website says, “Part documentation, part conjuring, this collection works to share the narrative of the event with more complexity, audacity, care, and specificity than public media accounts typically allow. Throughout the book, Germain also grapples with navigating the impacts of sustained protest-related trauma on mental health as it relates to activism and organizing. The book also takes occasional aim at the media that sensationalized these scenes into a spectacle and at the faceless public that witnessed them.”

“Bittering the Wound” is the winner of the 2021 CAAPP Book Prize.

For more information on this event, contact Robie Madrigal at rmadriga@csusb.edu.

Conversations on Race and Policing, also known as CoRP, began in the aftermath of the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd while in the custody of four Minneapolis, Minn., police officers. A video of the incident posted on social media led to widespread protests, the firing of four police officers, the arrest and conviction of one officer on a second-degree murder and related charges, the other three on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder – and a spotlight worldwide on race and policing.

The series has featured scholars, journalists, law enforcement officers, lawyers, activists, artists, educators, administrators and others from throughout the nation who shared their experience and expertise on issues related to race and policing.

More than 50 forums have taken place, and video recordings of the sessions are posted online on the Conversations on Race and Policing Lecture Series Archive. 

The series is organized by CSUSB students, staff and faculty, including recent history master of arts graduate, Cecelia Smith; history master of arts student Matt Patino; Mary Texeira, professor emerita, sociology; Jeremy Murray, professor of history; Robie Madrigal, public affairs/communication specialist for the CSUSB John M. Pfau Library; and community member Stan Futch, president of the Westside Action Group.

The spring semester lineup of Conversations on Race and Policing, each at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays, includes:

• Feb. 21: “In Conversation with Alec Karakatsanis.” The author of “Unusual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Justice System.” Karakatsanis is a civil rights lawyer and social justice advocate.
• Feb. 28: “In Conversation with Award-Winning Journalist, Cerise Castle.” A journalist, whose works has been featured on NPR, Vice, the Los Angeles Times, Castle is the winner of the International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award.
• March 7: “In Conversation with Dr. Beverly Gage.” A professor of history and American Studies at Yale University, Gage is the author of “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.” Michael German, a past presenter who is a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and former FBI special agent, will be the guest host.
• March 14: “IE to Ph.D. & Policing The Inland,” with Humberto Flores, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology from UC Santa Barbara whose research examines the brunt of policing in the Inland Empire.

For more information, contact Robie Madrigal at rmadriga@csusb.edu or Jeremy Murray at jmurray@csusb.edu.