determined"Fire Safety at Your Worship Center" and "Crime-Proof Your Worship Center" are two booklets full of general overview and specific checklists. That's an excellent starting place. However, they don't mention hiring a security company to provide alarms and/or guard patrols, which may be feasible for some institutions.
This does interact with race in some ugly ways.
1) Statistically speaking, black people are much poorer than white people. So they tend to live in worse neighborhoods with higher crime, and they have far fewer resources to take precautions. Crime drives up the cost of church maintenance, which may put it beyond the reach of black people and definitely imposes an unfair burden on their worship because of their race.
2) Black people are routinely denied rights and services that whites enjoy. While a common piece of advice is "get a gun" for protection, you know what happens when black people do that? Police murder them. They kill black people far more often than white people. This also happens if it's a toy gun. Or a cell phone. Or nothing at all but the officer hallucinated a gun because obviously all black people are armed thugs. Similarly, if black people call police to request protection or to report a crime, police may well shoot the victim. So attracting the attention of the authorities is often unsafe for blacks. Know the local climate before suggesting such measures.
It may help to raise money for arson prevention and/or rebuilding. Here is one reconstruction fundraiser. Notice that many churches have taken up a special collection on their own. If you attend a church, you could discuss doing that. Ask black churches in your area if they would welcome donations toward crimeproofing, or look up congregations who have recently lost their church to see what kind of rebuilding efforts are underway that you might support. Or you could donate to one of the many organizations that benefit black people, such as the NAACP.
If you are black and too fried right now to deal with your white friends -- and you have good friends -- just tell them. It's a lot easier to make up later after a rational separation than after you've bitten someone's head off. It is okay to take a break. It is okay to get tired of explaining things or doing racework. Burnout is a serious threat. Know how to prevent and heal burnout.
Another angle of approach is to undermine the prejudice that drives such crimes in the first place.
There are things you can do to stop racism. It helps to know how to identify racists. Try to distinguish between people who actively support racism (who are very difficult to budge) and people who just sort of picked it up by osmosis (where you may gain a lot of ground from careful work). You'll get more bang for your buck concentrating on the latter, and you need more intense tactics (such as anti-hate-crime laws) for the former.
Understand that not all whites are racists; it's about beliefs and actions, which are determined by upbringing and choices, not by skin tone. If you believe that racism is a venereal condition, then then you're claiming this is not a soluble problem, since nobody can change their skin. Some white folks (or fair-skinned people of mixed heritage) are xenophilic and appreciate the benefits of diversity; they can help groups integrate happily. They take proactive steps to boost diversity at work, at school, in clubs, and all around.
Are you racist? Some people need to work on how to stop being racist. Bear in mind that not everyone with prejudice chooses it. Sometimes your parents give you a headful of bad tape, which you discover as you grow up, and then you have to figure out how to get rid of it -- usually while people are calling you a terrible person for having bad tape. Over in Schrodinger's Heroes, I've written a series on this topic, Don't Try This at Home.
Teach children to enjoy diversity instead of hating it. Teaching Tolerance is my go-to resource for educational efforts on appreciating diversity.
Check in with your friends/family of color to see if they are as safe as feasible or if they need help dealing with stress due to the current spike in threat level. Try to be a little extra patient with them if they blow a gasket about something. It may not really be over the incident or about you, but a reaction to having all their spoons eaten up by other issues and/or a loss of coping methods if their church/community is not as accessible right now. There are tips on managing stress and helping an upset friend.
July 3 2015, 15:15:06 UTC 6 years ago
July 7 2015, 21:11:40 UTC 6 years ago