White Innocents: Racial Violence, Law Enforcement, and Culpability in U.S. History
Racist violence by white Americans was central to the making of the modern United States. And yet, the institutions charged with protecting people from such violence routinely proved unwilling to or incapable of dealing with that violence in any meaningful way. In this talk and based upon his in-progress book, Simon Balto discusses these twinned phenomenona, while also suggesting how exploring these histories opens new questions about culpability and accountability down to the present day.
Please note: A catered lunch will be provided at this Friday Lunch event. Seats are limited and available on a first-come basis. To register, please send an email to rsvp@humanities.wisc.edu with your name, title, or affiliation.
Download a poster of this event in PDF or JPG.
Simon Balto is an Assistant Professor of History and the College of Letters and Science Mary Herman Rubinstein Professor at UW-Madison. Author of the award-winning book Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power, he specializes in African American history and the history of policing and related carceral institutions. He is currently writing White Innocents: Terror, Racism, and Innocence in the Making of Modern America, which is under contract with W.W. Norton & Co.