Whitney

That’s why Purple Buddha Project handcrafts jewelry made by upcycling weapons of conflict from Cambodia such as bullets, bombshells, and other miscellaneous accessories of war through Fair trade Cambodian Cooperatives.

The purchase of each jewelry piece contributes to three pounds of rice for children at schools in need in Cambodia. 🇰🇭 🍚

Transforming Negativity Into An Artistic Message of Peace

Some people don’t have an in-person community, of course, and so the shock-absorption available to them is just whatever is in their own savings account and how much credit they have access to and maybe the knowledge that in the worst case they could move across the country and sleep on a friends’ couch for a few weeks but not longer because the friends’ landlord is strict about subtenants.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, upper-class communities have tons of shock absorption - if your home burns down, you probably have a friend who has a vacation home or an in-laws suite or a guest room where you can stay, if you lose your job it was the kind of job for which you get unemployment and you know someone who can get you an interview for another one, if you have a medical crisis you have lots of friends who can bring food and help out, and they all work jobs that let them take off on short notice in the middle of the day.

I’ve been helping a friend recover from surgery this week, and I’ve been thinking about this a ton. I could work from home for three days to be with her; her girlfriend had a spare bed where she could sleep for two because she was supposed to be near the surgery center and her house was an hour away; her girlfriend’s boyfriend could come over to help when girlfriend had to go to work; when her doctor’s appointment was changed to a time when I couldn’t drive her, another friend could take three hours off to do it. That’s a community with shock absorption.

It’s a class thing, but it’s not just a class thing. Doing this sort of thing is one of the things religions do. When I describe what I value about my community, my religious friends tend to go “oh, so, like what my church does”. A poor community where a dozen people from church will bring meals and support after surgery or after a loss or during cancer treatment has vastly more shock absorption than a same-income community where people have no way to coordinate that (and I think the decline of religion has been particularly costly in poor communities for exactly this reason).

And lots of money can’t fully substitute for a community, because lots of disasters (like medical emergencies) are of the kind that make it hard to advocate for yourself and independently arrange all the things you’re going to need.

They voted for Trump because he said he would run our country like a business. Which obviously entails callously making money off of poverty, completely disregarding small businesses and devastating poor communities & deepening food deserts. Top 1% playbook.

Like I stated, the main goal of this is to profit off of poverty. But additionally, large retailers wont see that much of a hit off their bottom line due to this new fee. It is the smaller stores that will be affected and might possibly just choose to stop accepting SNAP. So either smaller stores in low income areas will lose money that they can’t afford OR low income areas that are already food desserts will lose yet another necessary resource.

Also Me: