UUA Common Read Discussion 2021-22: “Defund Fear” by Zach Norris Hosted by: Joanne Dingus and Anthony Fiscella  Join the UUFP Adult RE Committee for a three-session program, discussing the UUA Common Read 2021-22: Defund Fear by Zach Norris Joanne Dingus and Anthony Fiscella will lead a three session discussion of the Common Read 2021-22: Defund Fear by Zach Norris on Monday October 10 from 6-8:30pm. In Defund Fear: Safety Without Policing, Prisons, and Punishment (Beacon Press, 2021), Zach Norris shifts the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment and toward support systems for our families and communities. The book explores what has gone wrong, and why, and who has been most harmed by repressive and racist policing systems. Norris offers a new blueprint for public safety that holds people accountable while still holding them in community. Goals of the sessions:  ● Invite responses to Defund Fear: Safety without Policing, Prison, and Punishment by Zach Norris ● Unpack the tension between fear-based and care-based society ● Guide individuals to locate themselves personally with an authentic sense of power, complicities, and responsibility ● Connect the book to the UUA intersectional mission priority of decriminalization ● Articulate Unitarian Universalist theologies and beliefs and connect them to past/current harm and the call and opportunities for transformation ● Invite a UU call to create, promote, live into care-based public safety system ● Consider paths to hope, healing, and resilience despite the challenges and the injustices of living in a white supremacy culture Please plan to read the book in advance of the two sessions. The book can be ordered online or borrowed from our church library. Sessions will start with a potluck at 6:00pm and discussion will go from 6:30-8:30pm. We plan to have this as an in person event but we can add zoom attendance by request. Contact dre@uufp.org for more information.