Lesson of the day
Throughline: American Police
Listen: Today we’re highlighting the podcast Throughline by NPR. Hosted by Rund Abdelfatah and Ratim Arablouei, Throughline is a podcast that tracks the history of events, institutions, and more to highlight the ways in which the past is not past. The most recent episode looks at American police, and how violent control of Black Americans was built into our system of law enforcement from the beginning. You can listen on their website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or by clicking the image below.
As you listen, consider these questions:
Think about the story that Khalil Gibran Muhammad tells at the beginning of the episode about the arbitration hearing. How might that same hearing have gone if Khalil was a white man? A white man with a record?
What do you think was the intention behind deputizing, by law, almost all white men to be slave patrollers? What might this have done to the mindset of those men?
How do you think the connection between early police officers and getting people to the polls shaped legislation and the political atmosphere of the U.S. for the decades that followed?
