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Charlotte Talks: Ahmaud Arbery And The Danger Of 'Running While Black'

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Thursday, May 14, 2020

A young black man is shot while jogging. Over two months pass before arrests are made and charges are filed. As America grapples with yet another killing of a young black person, we ask: why does this keep happening?

Little action was taken on Ahmaud Arbery'scase until a video showing the fatal shooting was leaked last week. Greg and Travis McMichael have been arrested and charged with murder -- and a national dialogue over racial profiling has been reignited.

This is part of a sad trend in American culture. We can recite by name young black men and women killed by white vigilantes or police officers in recent years: Trayvon MartinTamir RiceBreonna TaylorKeith Lamont Scott – the list goes on.

In Charlotte, there have been at leastthree controversial killings in six years of a black man by police, according to CNN, and City Council member Braxton Winston rose to prominence after a viral photo of him at a protest following the killing of Keith Lamont Scott.

While addressing racism has permeated the national conversation like never before, racially motivated violence and killings continue.

What is at the heart of these tensions? Why does this violence persist, and what can be done to curb it?

As racial injustice rears its ugly head yet again, we talk to a panel of historians, officials and experts to analyze the intersections of race, culture and criminal justice in America.

GUESTS

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at Harvard University and author of "The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America"

Braxton Winston, at-large representative of Charlotte City Council

Derrik Anderson, executive director, Race Matters for Juvenile Justice

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Jesse Steinmetz is Producer of Charlotte Talks with Mike Collins. Before joining WFAE in 2019, he was an intern at WNPR in Hartford, Connecticut and hosted a show at Eastern Connecticut State University.