Free online screening of movie Racially Charged: America’s M

Zoom, Richmond CA

13 November, 2021

Description

The Berkeley/North East Bay Chapter of the ACLU, Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) and the League of Women Voters are hosting a free online screening of the documentary Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem followed by a panel discussion with audience participation on Saturday, November 13, 3pm-5:30pm. The public is invited to sign up for this event by sending an email to bdilts@redshift,com. Brave New Films’ documentary Racially Charged, featuring voice over from Academy Awards winning actor and rapper Mahershala Ali, exposes how our country’s history of racial injustice evolved into an enormous abuse of criminal justice power. Brave New Films (BNF) create free documentary films that inform the public, challenge corporate media, and motivate people to take action on social issues nationwide. 13 million people a year – most of them poor and people of color – are abused by this system. Through first-person accounts of those charged under the Black Codes of the Reconstruction era paralleled with the outrageous stories of people trapped in the system today, the film brings to light the unfolding of a powerful engine of profits and racial inequality. With the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, this film provides historical context and examines America’s history of racist oppression. As seen in the movie, this misdemeanor system has led to the deaths of countless innocent black people including George Floyd and Eric Garner. George Floyd was approached because of a misdemeanor (using a fake $20 bill) and Garner was approached for the misdemeanor offense of selling loose cigarettes. The panel discussion will feature Gidared 'Gigi' Crowder, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Contra Costa; Imam Abu Qadir Al-Amin, Retired Director of the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice; Jeffrey Landau, Attorney for the Office of the Public Defender, Contra Costa County; David Muhammad, Executive Director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), and a representative from the Alameda County Public Defenders Office.