Danielle Allen, Director of the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, discusses her new memoir “CUZ”.
The book documents the events which conspired to cause the untimely death of her young cousin, Michael, on the streets of Los Angeles in 2009. A “deadly double helix” of narcotics and street gangs ultimately entrapped her cousin, as with countless others, leading to his incarceration and death.
Does our system of justice perpetuate the injustices it is meant to address?
What steps can citizens and governments take to find practical solutions to problems such as mass incarceration, extreme poverty in disadvantaged communities, and problematic notions of black criminality?
Harvard Professor of Government Danielle Allen moderates this discussion with Professors Tommie Shelby, Elizabeth Hinton and Khalil Gibran Muhammed.
This forum is a collaboration with the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, Harvard Book Store, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Harvard University Press and Boston Review.
Recorded on September 20, 2017
Tommie Shelby, author of Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform
Elizabeth Hinton, author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America
Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America
