Lecture “Making a Killing: On Class War and the Police” w/ Robin D. G. Kelley
The Alden-Berg Lecture is named for two distinguished alumnae and friends of the Department, Barbara Berg and the late Dr. Geraldine Alden. The lecture features notable academics and scholars to address important issues of the past and present.
Drawing on his forthcoming book, “Making a Killing: Capitalism, Cops, and the War on Black Life,” Robin D. G. Kelley will show how policing offers a unique window into the history of class in the U.S. His talk will focus on the neoliberal city, when federal cutbacks and global recession left municipalities financially strapped, making urban police departments simultaneously budgetary burdens, vehicles to extract revenue and engines of accumulation for the tech and private security industry, the municipal bond market and real estate interests. He also argues that organized resistance arising in response to police violence and the recomposition of the working class should be understood not simply as racial conflict but class war. About the progra