Image - Zach Norris
Past Event

Zach Norris: Building an Inclusive America

As the effects of aggressive policing and mass incarceration harm historically marginalized communities and tear families apart, how do we define safety?

Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris believes in a radical way to shift the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment and toward growth and support systems for our families and communities. In order to truly be safe, Norris says we have to dismantle the mentality of us versus them and bridge our divides.

Norris’s new book, We Keep Us Safe, is a blueprint of how to hold people accountable while still holding them in community. The result reinstates full humanity and agency for everyone who has been dehumanized and traumatized so they can participate fully in life, in society and in the fabric of our democracy. He makes the case that directing resources to stability and well-being, such as health care and housing, education and living-wage jobs, result in real safety.

Join us for a powerful conversation with Bay Area leaders Zach Norris and Fred Blackwell

Notes

Norris photo by Eurydice Thomas

February 12, 2020

The Commonwealth Club
110 The Embarcadero
Taube Family Auditorium
San Francisco, 94105
United States

Speakers
Image - Norris

Zach Norris

Executive Director, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; Author, We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities; Twitter @ZachWNorris

Image - Blackwell

In Conversation with Fred Blackwell

CEO, the San Francisco Foundation; Twitter @fredgblackwell