{"id":2105,"date":"2019-09-23T10:58:43","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T14:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=2105"},"modified":"2019-10-11T13:31:30","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T17:31:30","slug":"you-can-help-reduce-the-hidden-costs-of-being-a-minority-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2019\/09\/you-can-help-reduce-the-hidden-costs-of-being-a-minority-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"You Can Help Reduce the Hidden Costs of Being a Minority in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE 2019-10-11: Yom Kippur was Wednesday, and a guy with homemade guns and bombs tried to kill a few dozen praying Jews in Germany. He was thwarted by his own poor craftsmanship and decent locked doors. I’d\u00a0really like to know that Jewish congregations throughout America have good doors, good locks, and good trauma kits. All of this is expensive; a small trauma kit\u2014one with supplies to slow the death of one or two gunshot victims\u2014runs ~$50. It would be nice not to have to chose which of my friends, neighbors, or family members dies and which might live. YOU CAN HELP US BUY THESE THINGS<\/a>.\u00a0 Heck, here’s the\u00a0shopping list for a\u00a0minimal trauma kit<\/a>.\u00a0 Buy\u00a0the parts yourself, and send it to the congregation of your choosing. Concerned they won’t know what to do with it? Have them contact me<\/a> and I’ll walk them through how to use\u00a0this trauma kit in an emergency.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s expensive to be in the minority: You need to take days off that aren\u2019t excepted in the \u201csecular\u201d work calendar; you need to buy things (garments, food, etc.) for which there is lower demand (and thus are correspondingly more expensive to acquire); you need to spend time (often on a daily basis) explaining very simple things over and over and over again to often very well meaning people; you have to swallow your gall over a very large number of very small insults; you have to search around for food or facilities or services that are suitable for you, and don\u2019t oblige you to debase yourself or become an unwilling spectacle (although both are frequently part of your life).<\/p>\n

Muslims face this.\u00a0 <\/span>Immigrants face this.\u00a0 <\/span>Folks whose genders don\u2019t match their sexes in the predominant fashion face this.<\/p>\n

Right now, all over America, very small groups of Jews are scratching together very large sums of money in order to buy thicker doors, better locks, security cameras, and bullet-resistant glass.<\/p>\n

I know that you don\u2019t wish any of us harm.\u00a0 <\/span>And I know how awful it feels to not be able to do anything.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in the majority, then you never have to sit down in your pew and say \u201cOK: The shooter will almost certainly come through those doors, so I need to clear people this direction.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll designate Person X to sprint down to the childcare room and get the kids out through the fire exit\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

If you never attend religious services, then you aren\u2019t shopping for trauma kits<\/span><\/a>\u2014and so maybe have some shekels to spare.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t need to be dedicated brain cycles to having a plan for keeping your friends and neighbors alive for the 5 to 7 minutes it takes the police to arrive, then you have bandwidth to spare for some other thoughts\u2014and likely some of those are \u201cHow did we get here?\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>How the hell can we get back?<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

Me, I\u2019ve got the High Holidays next week; I\u2019m waiting for the supplies for my trauma kit to come in the mail.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m reviewing building schematics and Google satellite views and walking perimeters to figure how long it takes to get from a fire door to the tree line.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re bummed about the surge in American anti-Semitism (and the corresponding new fad of shooting Jews in our houses of worship while we pray), there\u2019s something concrete you can do:<\/p>\n

Send money<\/a><\/b><\/em><\/h2>\n

This flyer is for my community, but you don\u2019t have to send us money.\u00a0 <\/span>I absolutely guarantee that every Jewish Federation in every part of this country is running a similar drive.\u00a0 <\/span>We all are operating congregations and community centers in of old buildings with shoe-string budgets. Google the nearest major city to you and the word \u201cJCC\u201d (for \u201cJewish Community Center\u201d).\u00a0 <\/span>You\u2019ll either get the Jewish Federation for that region, the nearest Jewish Community Center in that town, or that town\u2019s lone lil synagogue (example: I googled \u201cjcc billings, MT<\/span><\/a>\u201d and found these cats Congregation Beth Aaron<\/span><\/a>\u2014who almost certainly need better doors).<\/p>\n

Give them a call and say \u201cI\u2019d like to donate to help you increase safety and security in your community.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Give an amount of money that\u2019s a multiple of 18 (it\u2019s sort of a lucky number; Jewish superstition associates 18 with life and longevity<\/span><\/a>).<\/p>\n

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UPDATE 2019-10-11: Yom Kippur was Wednesday, and a guy with homemade guns and bombs tried to kill a few dozen praying Jews in Germany. He was thwarted by his own poor craftsmanship and decent locked doors. I’d\u00a0really like to know that Jewish congregations throughout America have good doors, good locks, and good trauma kits. All … Continue reading “You Can Help Reduce the Hidden Costs of Being a Minority in America”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[11],"tags":[95,33,77,54,83,36,43],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2105"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2125,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105\/revisions\/2125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}