Speech regulation is traditionally presented as done at the level of legislatures, not street-level bureaucrats. But as modern-day movements like Black Lives Matter take the streets, police are the front line of First Amendment regulations. The future of policing is thus the future of the First Amendment. Prof. Etienne Toussaint discusses his work on “Blackness as fighting words” and how police violence against protesters renders free speech illusory and Prof. Bennett Capers discusses an afrofuturist vision of policing, and with it, a more racially equitable environment for speech and protest.
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