If you want to know why there are so many Somalis in Minnesota, maybe you should ask a Somali. It appears the basic answer is that a large number of Somalis were brought in during the 1990’s to work at chicken factories in Faribault and Marshall. In addition to that, the Lutheran Social Service brought in a group of Somalis in the early 1990’s. Once a community was established, it attracted new immigrants who preferred to be around people from their home country. I guess that they don’t mind the cold and find Minnesotans to be a friendly and tolerant lot. That doesn’t surprise me.
In any case, Fox News is outraged that a YMCA in Minneapolis has developed a swimming program for Somali girls that takes account of the social conservatism of Somali society. So, for example, they only use female lifeguards and they keep the door to the boy’s locker room locked during the lessons. For Fox News host Heather Nauert, this indicates that “the minority is becoming the majority” and that “Sharia Law is now changing everything.”
I am a secular progressive Democrat, so I don’t exactly sympathize with the Somali emphasis on female modesty, but the truth is that I don’t really care and I’m more interested in the benefit these girls will get from learning how to swim. Obviously, female modesty is a theme in Islam, and that influences how Somalis feel about women being seen by men while wearing a bathing suit. But to call this Sharia Law is sub-mental. How women dress is Islamic countries varies widely. It’s also offensive to fear-monger to Fox‘s decrepit white audience by suggesting that this modest swimming class is an indication that the “minority is becoming the majority.”
But that is how Fox makes their living, in the service of the Republican Party.
