The Washington Post has a piece today on the tensions in Grand Forks, North Dakota between white natives and the growing immigrant population, particularly refugees from Somalia who are Muslim.
On December 8th, someone filled a 40 ounce bottle of Bud Light with gasoline, lit it, and threw it through the window of a Somali establishment called Juba Coffee and Restaurant. This occurred only hours after Donald Trump called for a temporary ban on allowing Muslim refugees to enter the country.
“I blame it on Donald Trump, to be honest,” said Saida Aden, 24, a first-year engineering student. “And the media. Anyone just thinks they can say anything or do anything they want. It’s like the country needs a bogeyman, and it has become us.”
Whether Saida Aden is right or not, it certainly doesn’t help to have national politicians raising the fears and anxieties of people rather than doing their best to soothe them.
Some degree of apprehension is understandable in light of what happened in San Bernardino, where a seemingly assimilated Muslim man apparently plotted for years to carry out a mass casualty terrorist attack. But apprehension and caution are different from hatred and panic.
Some of the locals can sound silly when they complain about the Somalis.
[Grand Forks City Council member, Terry] Bjerke said he was upset that there were no statistics to show whether refugees had been responsible for an increase in robberies and burglaries. With so many refugee students learning English in school, he wondered whether native speakers were losing valuable time from their teachers. Most upsetting, he said, was that the Somalis were not adopting “American customs,” such as playing hockey or eating hot dogs.
Mr. Bjerke is running to unseat the Grand Forks mayor, so perhaps he has some cynical reasons to complain about Sub-Saharan immigrants’ not flocking to play a game on ice. He definitely sees some political gold in attacking his Somali neighbors.
The week after the public hearing on diversity, Bjerke invited a speaker named Usama Dakdok, an Egyptian Christian, to lecture about the city’s need to contain Islam’s influence. More than 450 attended, watching as Bjerke raised copies of the Constitution and the New Testament in the air and declared, “From my cold, dead hands!”
This behavior is not consistent with responsible leadership. It makes it more likely that another gasoline-filled forty will be thrown at a Somali business rather than less. And it’s human nature that when bad things happen to a community, that community will have the desire to strike back. If you want to drive a nice Somali kid into the hands of al-Shabab, a good way to do it is to throw a Molotov Cocktail through the window of his parents’ store.
It should be obvious that making people afraid, driving wedges between local communities, and encouraging people to take actions against an immigrant population are not ways to make Grand Forks safer.
But, when there is political power to be had, it’s like catnip to some people.
This is what Trumpism basically is, although it is not limited to him. He’s just leading the way. His competitors appear eager to follow.
Aah yes, the “use a persecuted minority to justify me persecuting another minority” schtick. This time coptics, who’s next? Who else can American racists borrow for a few minutes before they deny her service at the local diner a week later?
Yeah. Our “dear leaders” love that gambit. I remember something about persecuted Chaldean Xian minorities from Iraq, who were flouted around for a time as a partial “justification” for the Iraq War.
We’ll kill you and your Chaldean Xian families for freedumbs ‘n stuff! Woot! But at least you’ll be bombed and shot at by other “Xians” from Team USA! USA! USA! … not dirty horrible muzlinz!
This is who they are and who they’ve always been. The only thing Donald Trump did was drop the dogwhistles and he’s being rewarded for it.
Trump doesn’t know how to whistle. He just blows.
Trevor Timm, The Guardian, Lawmakers only care about others’ privacy when their own is at stake
Recap:
Israel spied on US administration negotiations with Iran on nuclear deal.
WSJ – U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders also swept up the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers
Trevor Timm response to the pissed off Pete Hoekstra tweets:
Who passed all this along to the WSJ? And who the hell has the authority and credibility to investigate and of this? Isn’t there a word for members of Congress taking bribes from a foreign government to undermine diplomatic efforts by a US administration? A word that begins with “T” — could be trouble, or that politicians favorite word, terrorism — but I’m thinking of something that rhymes season.
While I wholeheartedly support the thought, unfortunately, the definition of “enemy” in Treason, misprision of treason and sedition almost always requires a declaration of war.
Overheated rhetoric by (generally speaking) rightwing demagogues is not law.
Oh well, guess that’s why Kissinger and his spying cohorts got away with their “October Surprise.” Maybe somebody should nominate Bibi and Hoekstra for a Nobel Peace Prize.
OTOH, it’s a no-no for the WH to spy on members of Congress. Not that they did anything about it when GWB was POTUS. This time — well, this just might be worthy of impeachment.
56% of Americans favor warrantless spying of all Americans internet usage and communications.
Americans are entitled to be exceptionally stupid and ignorant. It’s right there in the Constitution.
Well yes, it was the justification for restricting the franchise to property owners.
That was never in the Constitution.
It was a state’s rights thingy.
The fatal flaw was in assuming that the propertied elite had any more of a clue as to how to promote the country’s long-term interests than Random Frontiersman #5. Europe, Russia, and the Ottoman Empires’ aristocratic dysfunction should’ve told them otherwise.
Now this I disagree with. Random Frontiersman #5 is a Trumpist who wants to deport all the darkies and slaughter the families of terrorists. #3-4 Simply dont care. #1 is willing to go with the aristocrats if they are better off than their neighbors.
Besides, I think that attitude has led to the success of the anti-intellectual and anti-science groups we face in our own day. In particular it means a lot of people’s level of concern about climate change, is based on their local weather.
Thats not to say I dont think universal suffrage is probably the best practical policy.
Yes, Random Frontiersmen #1-#5 are stupid, vile, and selfish. But you can’t overlook the fact that Random American Aristocrat #1 wants more child wives for their harem and is looking to restart the Atlantic Slave Trade, #2-3 wants a war with Napoleonic France in order to tighten the screws on protectionism, and #5 is conspiring with disaffected veterans from the Continental Army to overthrow the government and install a military dictatorship.
Certainly Random Aristocrats might know more than the Random Frontiersmen. They certainly had access to better information both contemporary and historical. When a supermajority of people were illiterate that’s guaranteed to be the case.
But if we’ve learned anything from the W. Bush information, having all the intellect and information in the world won’t lead to better decision-making if your worldview is fucked-up. And I believe that the worldview of the elites is as fucked-up, if not moreso, than the proletariat.
In good, but sad, news:
Bill Cosby charged with rape.
About time.
Cosby to file counter-suit alleging libel (or something) in 5… 4… 3….
I am an alum from one of the numerous institutions of higher ed who’ve rescinded Cosby’s honorary degrees. Very sad to realize who this man really is.
Take your lumps like a man, Cosby, and accept responsibility for your egregious actions.
Where is Ed Schultz when you need him? Time for a patented Ed Schultz town hall in his old town.
Schultz worked in Fargo-Moorhead, not GF.
He forgot to include fear and xenophobia, both time honored American customs as well.
They’re definitely upholding the old traditions of acting out their roles in Main Street.
And they didn’t even participate in our annual Anti-War on Christmas parade.
So I lived in FM in a heavily Somali neighborhood in the early 2010s. Felt entirely non threatened by them. Moms and kids walking about, moms in generally colorful hijab with faces visable. Hell some of the teen girls worked at Kmart wihth headscarves but otherwise body hugging outfits. If anything it was the Bosnians that were the gangster types in the early 2000s but even then they were pretty small time.
Even after the significant rise in crime after the oil field boom (and it was a very big rise, like 20% over 3 years) the culprits were always non-Muslim Americans black and white.
That said FM metro is about 3x the size of the GF-EGF metro so maybe they were easier to panic.
So, Bjerke is generally pronounced like Beer-key, but I think I cab reach back to how I said it for my highschool biology teacher: buh-jerk-y