Early in the morning of New Year鈥檚 Day 2009, Oscar Grant, age 22, was fatally shot by a transit police officer as he stood on a railroad platform in Oakland, California. Protests followed, and persist, in the wake of the incident described this way by The Justice for Oscar Grant Committee:
鈥淥scar Grant was a young Black man returning home by way of the Fruitvale BART station after celebrating the New Year. This was the only excuse the cop needed to end Grant鈥檚 life execution-style. Maybe Oscar was too loud, too proud, too Black. Maybe he was too calm during the taunts of the police. Or maybe it was for nothing at all.鈥�
Coming only days before the inauguration of Barack Obama 鈥� as the world鈥檚 media was proclaiming the dawn of a new 鈥減ost-racial America鈥� 鈥� the case of Oscar Grant demonstrated the depth and complexity of the relationship between media, race and power.
Renowned human rights activist Angela Davis will reflect on this issue in a Media@91社区 / Beaverbrook public lecture entitled 鈥淢edia, Race and Power: The Case of Oscar Grant鈥�.
Angela Davis is an American political activist and university professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Today, Davis continues to work for racial and gender equality, gay rights, and prison abolition and is a popular public speaker, nationally and internationally.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM Room 132, Leacock Building, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec (map)