[Cprb] Fwd: Police review - future town meeting?

[John Wason]

I found this among my old Inbox e-mails.  We never followed up on it.  I
have subsequently e-mailed Jennifer Walling a reply to the list of
questions submitted to her by a guy named Dave in UIUC student government,
and have agreed to address AWARE on a yet-to-be-determined future date.
How does this e-mail from Mike Simon relate to those other two things, and
what if anything should we do about it?  Thoughts?

John


At 11:33 AM 07/04/03 -0500, Ken Urban wrote:
>
>I got this email and it seems like a great way to publicize our efforts.
>Let's see if we can get the ball rolling on this. Thoughts?
>
>(When are we planning to meet?)
>
>Ken
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>Ken Urban
>Assoc. Prof. in Computer Science
>
>B129A
>(217)-353-2246
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

>Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 16:13:37 -0500
>From: msimon at uiuc.edu
>Subject: Police review - future town meeting? 
>To: kurban at parkland.edu
>
>Ken-
>
>After the successful town meetings Kim from WILL told me that very rarely
do groups approach WILL to help organize these sort of events.  
>
>Recently the lack of group effort on Anti-Racism in AWARE has been brought
up, and poorly addressed IMHO.  One issue apparent to all is that AWARE is
an almost exclusively white group and our events draw a similar type of
crowd.  The town meeting last night was no exception.
>
>A logical answer for us is to focus our Anti-Racism efforts on analyzing
the construct of "whiteness" and make people aware of the different ways
this construct - as opposed to "blackness," "brownness," lower-class
background or an immigrant status - manifests itself on a community, state,
national and international level.
>
>I'm writing to you because the civilian police review board seems like a
great place to address some of these issues.
>
>I would love for you and others associated with the issue to keep in mind
WILL's and Kim's excitement and pleasure at producing the town meeting.  It
seems like a wonderful opportunity if the review board - after conducting a
review of the types of complaints filed, race/class background of those
arrested, etc. - could present these findings and subsequent suggestions in
a town meeting format, allowing for public comments after the presentation,
all broadcasted over WILL.  
>
>I'd love to hear your comments about this and if you could also send me
some information on the times, dates and locations of your meetings I'd
really appreciate it.  
>
>Mike Simon
>
>p.s. - the chief of police at the event constantly expressed gratitude at
hearing the public's concerns.  could he be integrated into this meeting in
some way?