The Jim Crow culture didn't die out after the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It just subtly transformed itself to appear to be complying with new federal laws protecting the rights of black Americans, all the while doing everything it could to undermine those rights. A documentary film that captures the brutal, racist code of the South in 1960 and translates it into the more-subtle racialization of criminal justice today is the focus of a community conversation the Institute is offering in its Forum Series in March. It's just one of several can't-miss programs on the spring calendar, all of which are detailed in the articles below. Please save the dates, and I hope to see you this spring.
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David Klement, Executive Director
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The Fifth Annual Caregivers Conference at St. Petersburg College will have a back-to-the-future feel as it shows how dementia-sufferers can benefit from re-experiencing 1950s small-town America and how their caregivers can benefit from 21st century technology.
Preparing Caregivers for the Future
is the theme of the conference, which will be from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Digitorium at SPC's Seminole Campus, 9200 113th N. The conference is hosted by the Institute and co-sponsored by Maria's Adult Day Care Center and AARP Florida. Admission is free, including lunch, but advance registration is required at
http://solutions.spcollege.edu/.
The conference will feature a presentation on one of the latest concepts in dementia caregiving called Reminiscence Therapy. Scott J. Tarde, CEO of George G. Glenner Alzheimer's Family Centers Inc., will talk about Glenner Town Square, a day-care center for dementia patients in Chula Vista, Calif. The center resembles a village square from the 1950s, with 14 storefronts, erected inside an industrial building, designed to capture the years from 1953 to 1961. That's when the average dementia patient was between ages 10 and 30. The concept is to take the patients back to a time when their strongest memories were formed. Returning to those years helps dementia patients feel better in the moment, easing agitation and confusion - and importantly - making life easier for their caregivers.
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The grisly murder in Mississippi of Emmett Till in 1955 awakened Americans to the brutality of southern racism and sparked a wave of protests that led to the civil rights movement. Yet five years later, another young black man, a U.S. Navy veteran named James Fair Jr., was facing a lynch threat in Georgia, accused of a horrific crime he didn't commit.
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The #MeToo movement and a growing backlash against it will be explored in depth at the Institute's next Dinner Series program. Titled
#MeToo and Men: The Due Process Backlash, the program will be from 6 to 8:15 p.m. March 26 at the Conference Center on the SPC Seminole Campus, 9200 113th St. N. Advance registration is required. Media sponsor for this event is the Tampa Bay Times.
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Plans are shaping up for the Suncoast Sea Level Rise Collaborative's conference on climate, a two-day program that will explore changes in the level of climate impacts over four years and highlight action steps individuals and policy-makers could take to mitigate or adapt to those impacts.
The conference, titled
[Sea Level] Rise Up: Realities and Opportunities
, will be April 5 & 6 at the Conference Center at SPC Seminole, 9200 113th St. North.
The Collaborative, a small group of concerned citizens committed to educating the public about the challenges and opportunities created by global warming, emerged from the Institute's 2015 sea level rise conference. Since 2015, a great deal has happened on the climate change front to heighten the need for action to deal with the impacts of a warmer Earth.
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Press exposure in 2014 of the scalding death of Darren Rainey by guards at the Dade Correctional Institution in 2012 marked a turning point in Florida's criminal justice system, State Sen. Jeff Brandes told the audience at the Project on Accountable Justice forum at St. Petersburg College on Jan. 17. Brandes likened the prison system at that point to a plane that was flying upside down, with its engines out and the cockpit on fire.
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A near-capacity crowd turned out to hear the case made for transitioning America's capitalist, free-market system into a hybrid form of Social Democracy similar to that of the Nordic states of Europe. The program featured Dr. Philip Kotler, Professor of International Marketing at Northwestern University, who advocated for tweaking America's free-market system of capitalism to make life better for the 90 percent of the population that qualifies as as middle class or poor. He proposed an expanded government that offers free college tuition, free health care, more social safety net features - and higher taxes to finance those features.
Though many consider such a system as radically liberal, the audience response to Dr. Kotler's point of view was surprisingly positive. Offered a choice between Economic System 1, which listed the key points of capitalism, and System 2, which listed the key points of social democracy, the vast majority by a show of hands chose System 2. In a second audience poll conducted by Dr. Kotler, a large majority indicated they favor raising taxes on the wealthy to help pay for the benefits he outlined.
Eckerd College Economics Professor Jeff Felardo provided a counterpoint of view, arguing that big government is always less efficient than private enterprise, that Americans won't tolerate significantly higher taxes, and that the country is doing fairly well under free-market capitalism.
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March 26, 2019, 6-8:15 p.m.: Dinner Series:
*MeToo and Men: The Case for Due Process
.
Conference Center, Seminole campus of St. Petersburg, College, 9200 113th St. N. Dinner and program, $25, or $20 for students and educators. Advance registration required.
Apr. 5 & 6, 2019: 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday; 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday: Climate Conference:
[Sea Level] Rise Up: Realities and Opportunities
.
Conference Center, St. Petersburg College Seminole Campus, 9200 113th St. N. $20 full conference, $15 Friday only, $10 Saturday only. Advance registration required.
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