This is something that people are unaware of (sort of on purpose), but barbershops in black communities become ad-hoc community centers, where black men can just go and be among other black men. Gatherings of black men were (and are) seen as suspicious or "gang-related", but if there's a large gathering of black men at a barbershop, they're all just there to get a haircut, and everyone needs a haircut.
It's not expected of people to get a haircut.
Originally, it may have been a kinda-sorta-secret, but given the prominent role that barbershop-as-Black-social-nexus has played in popular media portrayals of Black American communities targeting general (not just Black) audiences for the last several decades, that's hardly the case any more.
People are unaware of lots of things. Ask, who are your two senators. You'd be surprised in today's day and age of constant media barrage, but many people can't answer.
It’s even referenced in a Disney (Pixar Animation Studios) film (Soul, where the main character’s history of arms-length interactions in that context as a violation of social norms is called out.)
This isn't specific to blacks. I've seen it first hand in every culture that has barber shops. Which is every culture.
The key ingredient is that the barbers are members of their community and there's work culture (or lack of work culture depending on the individual) that provides enough free time to actually congregate.
And when you have your special barber, he would cut your hair even when you have no money. That's another assumption a lot of non-black peoples do not know.
I'm black African. I went to live in Rome (Italy) and went 3 times in a "normal" barber shop and the Italians were just doing the haircuts as it is required by their jobs and talking about moundane things. I joined the conversation but ... They are professional. They don't have time to talk about personal problem and stuff. This is not the place.
I switched to a black barbershop and, just near Termini train station. Man, the first day I was there the barber told me and asked me personal stuff and it wasn't "unprofessional" in my view.
We bonded. And now he even call me to ask me how if a problem I have told him previously is solved yet, he has a plumber who can help me fix things and stuff...
So in our culture barbers are well respected.
The director figured that it is far more likely that men could get their heart checked if they didn't have to go out of their way to get to a hospital, and that was the right place to do it. He trained the main barber there on how to use the machine because he understood how much he cared about his friends, acquaintances, and the community he had fostered. IIRC he did that in many other barber shops in the area.
Funny enough, this approach also saves a lot of money because health problems can be identified faster than otherwise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond%27s
Although Desmond's wife was usually around, and he had a white apprentice:
Indeed, in sociology this building of community is typically called the 'third place' [0].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Amsterdam_(2018_TV_series)...
- Highly tailored to cultural nuances. Many immigrant communities only have religion as their fallback. I cannot overstate how important this is to such communities.
- In some cases, a diverse set of people and backgrounds from different points in their life.
- Many religions instill a sense of humility.
Other cons: - By nature ripe for abuse, without checks and balances in the structure.
- A lot of work and time/financial commitment by its members.
- In practice, some of the nastiest and most egotistical people I’ve met attend churches.
And, yeah. A barbershop is a decent stand-in.
In contrast, the mental health picture for isolated urban professionals starts with self-regulation, then jumps straight to being treated by The System. Therapists catch a broad range of problems that don't need all their training just by virtue of being the first rung on a ladder that starts 20 feet off the ground.
It's pretty wild how poorly equipped some parts of the country are to treat mental health. My younger sister (13) suffers from anxiety and depression. She says she just needs a therapist to talk to, but every time my parents have reached out to local resources covered by insurance they all want to immediately destroy her future, institutionalize her FULL-TIME in a residential program, and pump her full of drugs for the next five years. School and college prep? Forget about it.
Like, what the fuck? She just needs an affordable therapist... thankfully, I passed on some resources about sliding scale therapy and affordable options outside Florida Medicaid (Open Path Collective is run by angels, IMO). Yeah, she probably will need some medication, but the idea that, with only one major incident, a 4.0 GPA gifted student with a bright, educated future should essentially be orphaned and doped up through adulthood sends shivers down my spine.
The options covered by Medicaid are:
1. No treatment at all, because the system is overloaded, likely leading to further decline.
2. A social and mental nuclear option, certainly leading to further trauma and isolation. TBH, it's heartbreaking to me to think about how many parents have been duped into believing this is the only option (especially with affordable remote counseling being a more available option now).
Great system. We're lucky I have a well-paying software job, otherwise it's like the state wants people to suffer.
1. They are cheaper.
2. You get a haircut.
3. Community.
4. They are trained in the real world, and within the community they are serving.
5. The barber's incentives are aligned with yours. If they solve your problem, you're still a repeat customer. In the case of therapists and chiropractors, they are incentivized to manage your problem indefinitely or to find new problems.
You look up all the providers who take your insurance, call around, all the ones you try are booked up 3 months out...
And all this at a time when small hurdles are enough to stop you from doing literally anything
A country club?
A service org like Rotary / Lion's Club?
I'm not sure what's out there, but there must options other than Jihad, Kristallnacht, or barber shop.
Let's think about a couple more ways that you could go about obtaining a community in the US.
leisure: clubs, cafes, live music events, bars, gyms. proximity: neighborhood, induced parent communities from child communities. functional: PTAs, HOAs, coworkers, colleagues.
etc.
You mentioned gyms:
tl;dr: Karate dojos are a kind of gym with lots of community -- maybe too much!
Original post:
Gyms are an interesting one. Most are relatively anonymous, I think. But my (somewhere between first- and second- hand) experience of karate dojos was that they are very tight-knit, almost cultish (though not entirely in a bad way). People's SOs often joined, not really because they were interested in karate per-se, but because it was a way to spend more time together.
The hunt for the Third Place, especially among those that are “not 20” is very real and comparatively difficult.
I happen to have met a smallish group of people that I can start to grow as a community with that I actually want to, but this is a recent development and I’m grateful to the people that found me.
1. Religion.
Pros: Going to church has tied communities together for millennia, and if you could just find some better pastors, it could continue for several millennia more.
Cons: Secularly administering religion like a drug to treat social ills is against the precepts of every known religion, due to the fact that we'd all expect missionaries to believe what they're preaching. People who go around saying "I believe because it helps me" but who do not actually believe anything notwithstanding, we all know that's not self-consistent.
2. An amalgamation of historical myths and power structures that tie people together on the basis of perceived brotherhood.
Pros: People love being tied together on the basis of perceived brotherhood, tribal identity has been around a long time, and there is no debating with the idea that it works.
Cons: This is a description of every supremacist organization.
3. You talk to the guy at the barbershop.
Pros: You like to talk to the guy at the barbershop.
Cons: You can't go if you don't have the money for a haircut.
None of these options are perfect... but the barbershop plan is not that bad.