1 Feb 2008
Bill Narvey

The problems with Somali integration into American communities is an issue that the Federal Department of Immigration needs to take a very serious look at.

Rather then dump the responsibility to facilitate integration on the Somalis who resist it and an American community to do that job, the Immigration department might consider making it mandatory that Somalis must themselves prepare themselves to adapt to and integrate into American culutre before any Somali immigrant applicant is allowed to step foot into America.

America can provide cultural adaptation classes in Somalia that also makes known those aspects of Somali culture that they will have to leave behind,� but beyond that service to Somalis in Somolia, �it would be up to Somalis who wish to move to and live in America to attend classes and get a passing grade.

1 Feb 2008
Hugh Fitzgerald

"it would be up to Somalis who wish to move to and live in America..."

Why should "Somalis" who "wish to move to and live in America" have their wishes granted? Good god, half the backward world consists of people who apparently wish  "to move to and live in America" in order to improve their economic lot.

So what?

 

1 Feb 2008
Eik Civ

This entire refugee situation should be laid at the feet of the U.S. State Department, Office of Refugee Resettlement. However try getting any information from them and you will only get pushed around from one person to another, each pretending to no longer be working in that department. Contracts with VOLAGS like Catholic Charities are designed to match any funding they can provide, so helping refugees, in the long run, is really just a giant money-making proposition worth billions of dollars. By the way, I propose  you investigate that gnarled mess.

I'm in Emporia, Kansas, where Tyson has just laid off 1,500 laborers at the beef processing plant here. It came with no notice last Friday.  The city is stunned! Then, a couple of days later, the Somali community, through their elders, have announced that they are leaving. En masse. Those of us who have been vocal are being accused of bigotry.  Brian Mosely would certainly  understand what some of us are experiencing at the hands of some do-gooders.  One even suggested that we apologize to the Somali community, pray for forgiveness, and beg Tyson to give back all 1500 jobs. We are being blamed for the lay off.

Thank you for this very informative piece. 

 

2 Feb 2008
Tina Trent
Perhaps more troubling than the number of journalists who maintain silence in response to the Committees of the Perpetually Offended is the percentage of journalists who are card carrying members themselves. We are fully into a generation that has been trained, above all else, to calibrate "biases" and interrogate perceived racial slights with near-obsessive fervor. Twenty years ago, I worked in refugee resettlement in Clarkston, Georgia. The town was utterly transformed by its status as a major hub for relocation. Yet native-born residents -- given little other choice -- rose to the occasion, volunteering to provide invaluable services. In return, they were and continue to be subjected to criticism by outsiders who accuse them of failing to adequately and heedlessly embrace extreme cultural diversity (their own culture notwithstanding). Most recently, the New York Times jetted in and ran a long feature story about an alleged incident involving use of the town's public sports fields. While the accusations were extremely vague, the message -- of inbred (not a slur, in this paper), southern (white) bias was not. Of course, the reporter had not bothered to visit the Baptist churches where many horrible Clarkstonites modestly spend their free time tutoring refugees and immigrants. Why bother? The narrative of racial oppression (or racial insensitivity, or failure to properly acknowledge and vocally regret one's apparently persistent and subconscious racial biases) is the only story that matters, or at least will matter until somebody plops down ten thousand traditionalist refugees in the midst of Brooklyn Heights and these hip, young, punitive-multiculturalists get a taste of their own comfort zone and pocketbooks and social mores being challenged. Or not, since enforced masochism seems such a central part of the current narrative.

2 Feb 2008
Dave

This is a very good article. Thank you for submitting it. We will face some of the same issues in Western Wisconsin with turkey processing plants. It helps me keep my eyes and ears open for potential problems and to be brave to find good ways to address it as a citizen.

 We must figure out ways to assimilate these new immigrants. It also points toward how we must find ways to make hard working, honest Mexican immigrants legal and find safe ways to let them access our jobs. Agriculture needs this labor force, but not at expense of our safety.

Thanks again,

Dave

4 Feb 2008
Laura
Americans and westerners in general are paralyzed by charges of "racism" and "islamophobia", so we remain silent while hostile muslims invade in mass numbers, refuse to assimilate and disrespect our laws and culture ways as well as seek to have sharia law replace our constitution.

18 Feb 2008
Peter Gee
I very much doubt the Somalis referred to in this article are the "Bantu" Somalis who are granted a special immigration dispensation due to having been slaves in Somalia. For one thing, the Bantu Sonalis are not Cushitic-speakers but speak a language akin to KiSwahili. Secondly, Somalis generally are renowned for the frauds and scams they get up to internationally as regards immigration. Diverse Somalis who are not ex-Bantu slaves would fit the  profile perfectly.

I used to possess a copy of Sanfords Compedium of African Geography, 1858, written long before the interior of Africa was discovered. The Somali Coast,  was however well known since Biblical times. The authors commented on the extremely " diffilcult" not to say violent nature of the Somali. "The Somali is a Mahometan to whom murder,theft and vice are nor bars to the gates of Paradise. He is trecherous, turbulent and boisterous".

The author's  advice? "They are best left well alone".

Of course many would dismiss this as typical 19th centural racialism. They might be right, but there is an uncanny echo here and the proceedings in the article.

As for Somali rudeness and high handedness, it is well known that some believe  they are amongst the most vain, quarrelsome  and possessed of a sense of innate racial superiority of any group in the Horn of Africa, where they come from. Those who believe this may of course be bigots.

How can I say these dreadfully politicalkly-incorrect things? Simple...I live next door to Somalia, in Africa.

19 Jul 2009
Mona Lee

This reading is enheartening  because I have long said these same ideas. The Somali come with their hands out and if we STOP giving, they will STOP coming.  In Columbus, I talked to the Catholic organization that sponsors them. I called to asked if they was any monitoring of the somali because one of their clients was reaking havoc on a American family and i was told there is no monitoring after settlement and no further resp. The Somali population is killing the economy from within. The education system suffers, the somali males will not respect female teachers(system of 95% female) and are violent with white students. The courts are busy busy dealing with the Somali males. The welfare system is abused with wives being claimed as daughters to get more $/fs. The health care(TB) is a disability thus SS is abused. The double standard used for refugees is taken advantage of. Oh! and lets not ignore how much welfare $ is sent into Somali and the transfer vehicles used. More banks need to stop these transfers. Their sense of entitlement is dangerous!!!

28 Oct 2009
Iman

you have to know what you are talking about first before you write you article. Don't you think?  &nsp; Ashura is for the shia and Somalis soni Muslims 100%. Therefore your article shows that you are a resist person. you should meet Somalis and interact with them, so you can get your story  from its real sources. I am not saying Somalis are perfect but they are the most cleanest people you would meet, their home smile good. their personally Highness is the cleanest. Being Muslim made them more so. They wash themselves five times a day to pray isn't that would make them cleaner than those who take bathes only on occasion and holidays.Get your  sources straiten up and be fare and honest,

6 Jul 2010
Mike Goodman