#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.

0 - July 3, 2017

BEFORE FERGUSON: A HISTORY OF POLICE VIOLENCE

SCA-UA 280/6W2 - SUMMER 2017
Professor Steven W. Thrasher
New York University, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis/American Studies Program
#BeforeFergusonNYU

Course Description

Before Ferguson: A History of Police Violence will be an intensive, immersive study in American policing and
the relationships between capitalism, racism and state violence. Using the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Missouri and its aftermath as an entry point and recurring touchstone for our study, we will explore the
historical roots of policing in the United States, the contemporary violence policing creates, and the many foreign
and domestic domains of policing. From Fallujah to Ferguson, Baghdad to Baltimore, and Hollywood to Hanoi, we
will look at how the U.S. social order is upheld by policing cities, foreign territories, gender expressions, gender
identities, sexual orientation, disease, entertainment, ideas, culture and empire.

Warning

The professor will begin many classes with a review of timely journalism stories (often with video) about
newsworthy police violence. These will include disturbing scenes of trauma and violence; however, the class will
process this material together in a supportive environment. If a student feels overwhelmed by this, they should feel
free to express themselves about this in class or individually to the professor at any time.

Books (required)

Please purchase these five books in physical form or check out from a library. They are available for purchase at the
NYU bookstore, but are easily found at any bookstore or online:

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta, From #BlackLivesMatter To Black Liberation (Haymarket, 2016)

Coates, Ta-Nehisi, Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015)
Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New Press, 2010)
Davis, Angela Y., Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
(Haymarket, 2016)
Baldwin, James, The Fire Next Time (Vintage, 1963)

Books (highly suggested)

Baldwin, James and Peck, Raoul, I Am Not Your Negro (Vintage, 2017)
Chamayou, Gregoire, A Theory of the Drone (The New Press, 2015)

1
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

Books (suggested)

Murakawa, Naomi, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Hinton, Elizabeth, From The War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in
America (Harvard University Press, 2016)
Khalili, Laleh, Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies (Stanford University Press, 2013)
Rayman, Graham, The NYPD Tapes: A Shocking Story of Cops, Cover-Ups and Courage (Palgrave, 2013)

Articles

Assigned articles will be made available on the NYU Classes site; interactive articles will be available online.
Required reading selections from suggested books will be provided on the NYU Classes site.

Readings and Discussion

Readings and discussion are mandatory. If students do the readings, there will be no required response papers; if
students are not doing the readings, responses will be assigned to be uploaded before class. For the time being,
students are to come to class having written down at least three points from the readings that they want to discuss.
These will not be collected, but each discussion will begin with students putting one of these points on the table. As
needed, students may be assigned to help lead discussions. Reading and participation will account for 25% of
grades.

Weekly Writing Assignments

Writing assignments of various lengths will be assigned every Thursday, due at the beginning of class the following
Thursday (unless otherwise noted). These will then be returned by the professor the following Tuesday. They are to
be printed out, double spaced with 12 point font and standard margins, and turned in to the instructor on paper.
Writing assignments will account for 25% of grades.

Final Project

Students are to take one required book or suggested book, read it in its entirety, and put it in conversation with one
of the following: the subject of one of their shorter writing assignments (i.e., a court visit), a primary source
document we encounter in class (or another one approved by the professor), an artwork not addressed in class, or an
instance of police violence. In the paper, the book and the object it is relating to should explore the history and
reasons for police violence. Paper should be approximately 10 pages in length and will account for 50% of the final
grade (10% for a short oral presentation, 40% for the written paper). On a case-by-case basis, a student may
propose doing a work of explanatory/investigative journalism of a slightly different nature than a research paper.

Digital Devices and Computers

Digital devices (tablets, laptops, cell phones) will not be allowed in the course. Please take notes by pen and paper of
things of importance or inspiration; this is not a class in stenography. Please bring books to class for discussion.
Interactive online readings will be shown by instructor on central computer in class. Regarding readings posted
online: students should print them out and bring with them and/or bring notes for discussion.

2
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

Food

Class is meeting from noon to 2 PM. Please eat lunch before or after class. If this is not possible, please bring food
which is minimally invasive (a piece of fruit, a sandwich) and refrain from hot, loud and/or strongly smelling foods.
SCA common space is available before class for eating and the conference room may be, as well.

Absences

Because of the intensive nature of a summer course, absences are not possible; similarly, being late to class is not
possible. Only one unexcused absence is allowed without grades being affected. Any additional absences will need a
written excuse (medical emergency, illness in the family). More than two absences, even with a written excuse, will
affect grades. Coming to class without doing the reading will count as an absence. Extreme tardiness will count as
an absence. Please take note that New York City public transit is increasingly unreliable and the subway is a
hellhole. Therefore, it is recommended if you are using the subway, aim to be on campus by 11 AM. Space is
available for study at SCA.

Social Media

You may follow professor on Twitter (@thrasherxy) where hashtag #BeforeFergusonNYU will be used. However,
all communication must be through NYU email, and no other social networks may be used.

Office Hours

Office hours, TBD, will be available by appointment weekly. Email professor if those times do not work. Also,
mandatory individual meetings will be scheduled mid-term to discuss final papers.

COURSE SCHEDULE (to be adjusted as needed)

WEEK 1 - WHY FERGUSON?

Core Text: From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

A system that perpetually condones the killing of people, without consequence,

doesn't need to be revised, it needs to be dismantled!
Colin Kaepernick, June 16, 2017

Class No. Date Class

1 Tuesday, July 4 Cancelled for Fourth of July.

Optional reading:
Douglass, Frederick, What to the slave is the Fourth of July? 1863

Optional viewing:
Hughes, Langston, Let America Be America Again, 1936 (performed by
Alfre Woodard)

3
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

2 Wednesday, July 5 What is policing?

In our first session, we will brainstorm about fundamental questions such

as: What is policing? Why is Ferguson an entry point for our study about
police violence? And, How are Ferguson, Metropolitan St. Louis and
Missouri representative of, or aberrational to, the history of policing in the
United States? We will discuss our own personal experiences with police
and police violence, and also brainstorm about the goals everyone has for
the class.

Readings to begin our discussion:

Anderson, Joel, Is Race An Issue in Ferguson? Depends on Whom You
Ask, BuzzFeed, 2014

Thrasher, Steven, Wisdom from Fergusons kids: They shouldnt shoot

people for protesting. Guardian, 2014

Graeber, David, Ferguson and the Criminalization of American Life,

Gawker, 2015

View online: 1.5 Million Missing Black Men, New York Times, 2015

3 Thursday, July 6 From the plantation to Ferguson

Screening and discussion: I Am Not Your Negro (Dir. Raoul Peck, 2016)

Reading:
Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, Introduction: Black
Awakening in Obamas America (p. 1 - 50), Chapter 4: The Double
Standard of Justice (p. 107 - 133)

"An Ordinance Organizing & Establishing Patrols for the Police of Slaves
in the Parish of St. Landry," 1863

Week 1 writing assignment:

Go to a court in New York City; they are open to the public and many are open 24 hours a day. Any kind of court
(criminal, civil, family, small claims, housing) is fine at any level (city, county, federal), but it must be a
courtroom with people and cases. You can go to New York court during the day or night in Manhattan, Queens,
the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Staten Island. Night Courts (especially in Brooklyn and Manhattan) are fascinating.
Immigration (ICE) courts have a lot of activity lately. Spend some time in the courtroom (one to two hours) and
the hallways near it. Observe what you see, taking note of: Who is there? What they are doing? What do they look
like? What transpires? What are the lawyers like? Do the accused have family members? Who is working in the
courtroom? Are there police? How are you policed? Write a short paper (two to five pages) about what you see.
Dont analyze too much in your writing -- mainly, just observe -- but do be prepared to discuss in class next
Thursday how what you saw relates to policing and to the readings. Due Thursday, July 13 when you arrive in
class.

Week 1 suggested reading (not required)

The Ferguson Commision Report, 2015

4
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

WEEK 2 - POLICING MEDIA: DOGS, ENTERTAINMENT AND THE PRESS

Core text: The Fire Next Time

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,

except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. (Emphasis added.)
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, 1865

4 Tuesday, July 11 Take a bite out of crime

How have dogs been used by police -- and what can they tell us about the
links between the plantation, the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th
Century, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement?

Screening: McGruff the Crime Dog (short videos from 1980s & 2010)

Reading:
Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, Part 1, My Dungeon Shook (Note: we will
also look at the new 2017 Taschen edition of The Fire Next Time in class
to augment discussion, with photos by Steve Schapiro.)

Wall, Tyler, The Police Dog and Racial Terror, American Quarterly,
2016

Spruill, Larry, Slave Patrols, Pack of Negro Dogs, and Policing Black
Communities, Phylon, 2016

5 Wednesday, July 12 Policing entertainment

Screenings: TBD

Yesterday, we saw McGruff the Crime Dog. In 100 years of film and TV,
how have we experienced police killings in moving images -- from Buster
Keaton to the Naked Gun to Fruitvale Station?

Reading:
Rosenberg, Alyssa. In Pop Culture, There Are No Bad Police Shootings,
Part III of five part 2016 Washington Post series, Dragnets, Dirty Harrys
and Dying Hard: 100 years of police in pop culture.

Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, Part 2, Down By The River

6 Thursday, July 13 The press

uardian (Twitter:
Guest speaker: Jamiles Lartey, Reporter, The G
@JamilesLartey); SCA alum; National Association of Black Journalists
Michael J. Feeney Emerging Journalist of the Year, 2016; co-author, The
Counted.

5
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

Prior to 2015, when the Guardian a nd the Washington Post launched

projects to count how many people were killed by police, there had never
been a comprehensive list of such killing in any given year; indeed, the
U.S. federal government still doesnt know how many people police kill in
a year. Jamiles Lartey will speak about his experiences with the
Guardians Counted project; and, as he received a joint Masters degree
from SCA/Africana Studies and NYU Journalism in 2015, he will talk
about how hes used this academic training in his work.

Before or after Mr. Lartey joins the class, we will discuss the Week 1
writing assignment (on court), which is due at the start of class. We will
also discuss other matters of the police and the press, particularly in regard
to the 2015 lawsuit BuzzFeed v. Honorable Judge Jon Cunningham.

Reading:
Spend time online reviewing The Counted and come to class with
questions.

Optional readings:
BuzzFeed v. Honorable Judge Cunningham writ

Transcript of Johnson jurors name hearing

Week 2 writing assignment: Watch or listen to a work of popular culture (of any kind), reflecting on what
youve learned about police violence in the readings so far. Write a short (approx. two page) response which
considers: How do you experience this work differently than you might have before? What is the work trying to
say about policing? And, if applicable: How do you experience the protagonist and antagonist of the work? Due
Thursday, July 20 when you arrive in class.

WEEK 3 - TRANSNATIONAL PUNISHMENT, IMPRISONMENT, AND SURVEILLANCE

Core text: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books

interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family
or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.
Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian

7 Tuesday, July 18 Digital breadcrumbs field trip: Hansel and Gretel (Jacques Herzog,
Pierre de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, 2017)

Will visit the Park Avenue Armory for Hansel and Gretel.

Reading:
Thrasher, Steven. Missouri officer brags about spending his Mike Brown
Bonus, Guardian, 2015

6
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

Read Spencer Ackermans online series The disappeared: Chicago police

detain Americans at abuse-laden black sites, the Guardian, 2015; pay
special attention to section Bad Lieutenant: American police brutality
exported from Chicago to Guantanamo.

Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone (selections TBD)

Optional readings:
Khalili, Laleh, Time In the Shadows (selections TBD)

8 Wednesday, July 19 Transnational policing

Screening: short Guardian v ideos of Homan Square (Dir. Mae Ryan,

2016)

Guest speaker TBD

In this class, we will briefly review the links between U.S. wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and how domestic police have acquired equipment through
the 1033 program. But we will also look more substantially at how U.S.
police violence is exported out of the country (i.e., to Guantanamo Bay),
and how police departments train across borders in circuits.

Reading:
Davis, Angela Y., Freedom Is A Constant Struggle Chapters 2 (Ferguson
Reminds US of the Importance of a Global Context), 4 (On Palestine,
G4S and the Prison-Industrial Complex) and 6 (From Michael Brown to
Assata Shakur, the Racist State of America Persists)

Wilson, Simone, LAPD scopes out Israeli drones, big data solutions,
LA Jewish Journal, 2014

Optional readings:
McMorris-Santo, Evan, Washington bails on demilitarization after
Ferguson, BuzzFeed, 2014

Kane, Alex, The Spoils of War, The Indypendent, 2017

Roosevelt, Theodore, Fourth Annual Message, 1904

Schrader, Stuart, Policing Empire, Jacobin, 2014

9 Thursday, July 20 Imprisonment

Policing can engage momentary interactions or one of two final

destinations: death, or the prison. In this class, we will discuss Michel
Foucault (and a critique of him by Dennis Childs) to consider what
imprisonment is and how it works. Reflecting on student experiences in
court, as well as on media accounts, we will consider the links between
policing outside and inside prisons (as well as outside and inside of
people). We will also consider the Week 2 writing assignment and Angela
Davis feminist concept of prison abolition.

7
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

Reading:
Childs, You Aint Seen Nothin Yet: Beloved, the American Chain Gang,
and the Middle Passage Remixed, American Quarterly, 2009

Foucault, Michel, Prison Talk from Power/Knowledge: Selected

Interview & Other Writings 1927 - 1977 (Vintage, 1980)

Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, Chapter 8 (Feminism and

Abolition: Theories and Practices for the Twenty-First Century)

Week 3 writing assignment: Either in your daily commute, or over the course of an hour or so in a totally public
space (i.e., Times Square, the Oculus, Penn Station) or a privately held public space (a store, a busy lobby),
observe how you see policing and surveillance at work. What do you see...police officers, cameras, private
security, dogs? Who and what are they surveilling, and who or what are they protecting? What digital
breadcrumbs are you leaving as you observe or pass through this space? Do not put yourself in harms way to
do this. Write a short (two pages or so) paper, due Thursday, July 27 when you arrive in class.

WEEK 4 - VICE! POLICING DESIRE, DRUGS AND DISEASE

Core text: The New Jim Crow

"The drag queens who created Stonewall are no better off today,
but they made the world safe for Gay Republicans.
Donald Suggs to Sarah Schulman

10 Tuesday, July 25 Policing desire walking tour: Stonewall, Sothebys and surveilling
sodomy

We will walk to the Stonewall Inn, through the West Village and end on
the West Side Piers. We will discuss the policing of LGBT people in U.S.
history, gay and lesbian gentrification, and queer youth homelessness.

Reading:
Hanhardt, Christina, A Queer History of Gentrification Verso blog, 2016

Winerip, Michael, Chelseas Risque Businesses, New York Times, 2015

Screen before class: Paris Is Burning (Dir. Jennie Livingston, 1991), at

least the opening. On Netflix, YouTube or at NYU Avery Fisher Center.

Optional readings:
Delany, Samuel, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (NYU Press,
1994)

Schulman, Sarah, Gentrification of the Mind (University of California

Press, 2013)

8
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

11 Wednesday, July Policing drugs

26
Screening: Frontlines Forever Prison (15 minutes), Nancy Reagans
1986 Just Say No video (5 minutes)

In this class, we will discuss Alexander and dive into the War On Drugs,
looking for connections between policing drugs and policing sex by way
of race, gender and real estate.

Reading:
Alexander, The New Jim Crow, pages 1 - 58, including the Forward, Intro,
and Chapter 1 (The Rebirth of Caste)

Foucault, Michel, The Politics of Health in the 18th Century from

Power/Knowledge

Optional readings:
Bell, Chris, Im not the man I used to be From Sex and Disability, ed.
Robert McRuer and Anna Mollow (Duke University Press, 2012)

Hannabach, Cathy, Technologies of Blood, Cultural Politics, 2013

12 Thursday, July 27 Policing disease and disability

In this class, we will discuss in depth the case of Michael Tiger

Mandingo Johnson and the politics of policing HIV and other
communicable diseases. We will focus especially on policing HIV in St.
Charles, St. Louis and Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the history of
policing HIV here in New York State and the concept of mandingoism.

Reading:
Thrasher, Steven, How HIV Positive College Wrestler Tiger Mandingo
Became An HIV Scapegoat, BuzzFeed, 2014

Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow, pages 168 - 261, Chapters 5
(The New Jim Crow) and 6 (The Fire This Time)

1 (make up) Saturday, July 29 Walking and boat tour (with Prof. Jackson Smiths class Urban
Cultural Life) on policing in New York - 1 to 4 PM

We will travel to One Police Plaza, seeing where the NYPD is based and
briefly passing by the tombs (formerly the Bernard Kerik Complex) and
the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where El Chapo and other people
facing federal terrorism charges are kept. We will then travel by foot to
Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street began. Finally, we will take the
Staten Island Ferry to visit where Eric Garner was killed.

Reading:
Thrasher, Steven, The White Mayors Burden, Village Voice, 2011

9
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

Selections of 2012 issue of Social Text on Occupy Wall Street: Is This

What Democracy Looks Like? (Bauer, Beltran, Jaleel, Ross) and
Policing Political Protest (Schrader)

Rayman, Graham, The NYPD Tapes, Part 1, Village Voice, 2010

I Cant Breathe, Guardian, 2014 (Dir. Mae Ryan/Prod. Steven Thrasher)

Optional listening/reading/viewing:

This American Life, Right to Remain Silent, Act II: Is That a Tape
Recorder in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Unhappy To See Me? 2010

Thrasher, Steven, The Eric Garner decision confirms a holiday of horrors.

Tis the season for more protest, not less, Guardian, 2014

Thrasher, Steven, Police hunt and kill Black people like Philando Castile.
There is no justice, Guardian, 2017

Week 4 writing assignments: Earlier in the course, we read Baldwins letter to his nephew. Next week, we will
read Coates letter to his son. Write a letter to a child in your life -- offspring, a sibling, a cousin, a friend, a
nephew or niece -- telling them what youd like them to know about America now and as they grow up. Write
one or two pages; this will not be graded but must be completed and may be written by hand if desired. Due by
Thursday, August 3. Also: write a one paragraph to one page outline of what your final writing project will be.
Due Monday, August 1.

WEEK 5 - POLICING PROPERTY, POLICING LIFE

Core text: Between the World and Me

White people are astounded by Birmingham.

Black people arent.
White people are endlessly demanding to be
reassured that Birmingham is really on Mars.
They dont want to believe,
still less to act on the belief,
that what is happening in Birmingham
is happening all over the country.
They dont want to believe that there is not one step,
morally or actually, between
Birmingham and Los Angeles.

James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro

13 Tuesday, August 1 Policing property

Screening: Baltimore community assembles for second night, Guardian,

2015 (Dir. Mae Ryan/Prod. Steven Thrasher)

10
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

In this session, we will focus on policing property and how race is made
when police are charged with maintaining property values. We will
particularly look at the shootings of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Trayvon
Martin in Florida, and Philando Castile in Minneapolis, considering these
cases in relation to same-sex marriage, environmental racism, stand your
ground laws and the 2nd Amendment.

Reading:
Singh, Nikhil, The Whiteness of Police, American Quarterly, 2014

Coates, Ta-Nehisi, Between the World and Me, Part I.

Optional readings:
Murakawa, Naomi. The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison
America (selections TBD)

Hinton, Elizabeth, From the War on Poverty to the War On Crime: The
Making of Mass Incarceration in America (selections TBD)

14 Wednesday, Armed and unarmed black males

August 2
Screening: Rodney King video + other police violence caught on tape
(TBD), possibly Straight Outta Compton (Dir. F. Gary Gray, 2015)

What happens to the Black male who is unarmed, illegally armed, or

legally armed in the U.S when they intersect with law enforcement?
Looking at a variety of cases (Rodney King, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile,
John Crawford), we will try to get a sense of what happens in these
different states of being armed.

Reading:
Coates, Between the World and Me, Parts II and III

Additional readings (police reports, press clipping, selections from The

Counted on unarmed people being killed by police) TBD

15 Thursday, August #SayHerName and so-called suicide in jail

3
Screening:, #SayHerName (Dir. Kimberle Crenshaw, 2016)

Listening: Hell You Talmbout (Janelle Monae & Wonderland, 2015)

We will discuss emerging research on Jesus Estrada Perez (who

committed suicide in a jail in Nebraska); the cases of Charleena Lyles,
Mary Turner and Sandra Bland; and, the #SayHerName campaign. We
will also discuss the concept of John Henryism and read some of our
letters in class.

Reading:
Crenshaw, Kimberle, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity
Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, Stanford Law Review,
1991.

11
#BeforeFergusonNYU Version 2.0 - July 3, 2017

Thrasher, Steven, Its not a white thing: the myth of suicide in Black
American lives, the Guardian, 2015.

Week 5 writing assignment: Final paper, due Thursday, August 18 at noon.

WEEK 6 - WHAT IS POLICING?

Core text: no book

With each administrative layer to protect African Americans from

lawless racial violence, liberals propelled carceral development that, through
perverse turns, expanded lawful r acial violence. This history matters
because many twenty-first century proposals -- calls for less
prosecutorial discretion and more, juridical discretion, for clearer written standards
to initiate stop-and-frisks, and for more police training to stop
racial profiling -- remain locked in the same perilous if well-intentioned
pursuit of administrative perfection.
Naomi Murakawa, The First Civil Right

16 Tuesday, August 8 Open class

Students get to decide: what about policing that we havent learned about
that we should we discuss?

17 Wednesday, Student presentations

August 9
Each student will present about their paper (not read their paper) for five
minutes, followed by five minutes of class discussion.

18 Thursday, August Final class: What is policing?

10 (NOTE: May
move to Monday, In our final class, we will try to answer just what American policing is,
August 7 if identify its historic roots, imagine its future, and discuss what should be
possible) done with it as a concept, as an institution, and as a way of life. We will
also reflect on why so many approaches to policing we have looked at are
framed as war (War on Crime, War on Poverty, War on drugs, War
on Terror, etc.) Most importantly, we will eat lunch.

Final papers due at start of class. Please bring a self-addressed

envelope for its return.

12