Our speaker, Steve Martinot, will describe how police militarization rests on the foundation of the militarist ethic by which the police operate. The government has seen fit to supply the police with military equipment, which has consequences both for the people subjected to the presence of such weaponry and for government intentions. The second half of the presentation will be on the relation of police militarization to the structures of racialization in the US.
Lifelong social justice activist Steve Martinot has worked as a machinist and organized a number of shops. Steve organized a trucking company in New York City, which led to a wildcat strike. He has been engaged in Latin American solidarity and once faced indictment from the federal government for that. In addition, Steve has done neighborhood organizing and edited two underground newspapers, one in NYC and one in the Akron area. A former political prisoner, Steve was incarcerated in 1970. After Steve started writing in the 1980s, he taught at Colorado University and UCSF. He has produced eight books, four on racialization and prison abolition and three as volumes from different conferences. He also translated a book on racism by Albert Memmi from French.
