Last year millions of people gathered in the streets to protest police violence and honor the lives it has stolen. At General Assembly 2020, we committed ourselves to the work of racial justice by passing the “Amen to Uprising” Action of Immediate Witness. Over the summer, organizers, acitvists and faith leaders joined us for “Taking a Collective Breath”, a series that explored the Breathe Act — a piece of legislation that seeks to reform federal laws and eliminate funding for federal programs that criminalize Black, Muslim, and immigrant communities and reinvests our resources in community solutions for education, health, and the environment.
How do we imagine a future without police? What can we learn by studying the organizing around community safety and police violence? How can we as Unitarian Universalists show up in this moment?
Join us for a special event hosted by Side Will Love, UU Justice Arizona, and UU the Vote.
After the workshop, attendees will have the opportunity to join UU Justice Arizona and Poder in Action (frontline org led by youth, women, immigrants, and folks directly impacted by police violence) for two phone banks to Phoenix voters to invest 5% of the police budget back to the community.
UU Justice Arizona (UUJAZ) believes true safety comes from building thriving communities by investing in affordable housing, mental healthcare, food access, job training, education, and treatment for drug users… not through increased policing. For the last two years, UUJAZ has worked in coalition with local partners around police accountability and ending police violence. Now they are working with that coalition to decrease police funding in this spring’s budget cycle, and they want our help!
Join us for this 90 minute convo-shop (conversation and workshop) with UUJAZ, their partners on the ground, and UU leaders around the country to deepen our understanding of safety and policing, and get prepared to support the Phoenix coalition in a phonebank on April 17th.
Let’s support safe and thriving communities in Phoenix and learn skills that we can use to move these conversations forward in our local communities.
