It's because she's not white.

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=even sven]
Sale on broad brushes? Islam is not practiced the same way everywhere in the world.
[/QUOTE]

Neither are Catholics, yet here we are in the US having to fight organized Catholic opposition to a woman’s right to choose and even to birth control, and there was also the Catholic Legion of Decency-organized censorship that reiged in the 1930s-1950s. Yet US Catholics are generally regarded as liberal. We get a large Muslim base, are we going to be fighting for a woman’s right to be seen in public without a veil? Without a male escort? I mean, I’ll grant you that Muslims differ, that some Muslims assimilate, but the same is true of Catholics yet they are a huge pain in the ass if your values are moderate, much less progrssive, and EVERYTHING I have ever heard about Muslims indicates that they (in general) make Catholics look liberal and enlightened. I’m sure there are huge exceptions to that rule, but … there’s still that rule.

22

[QUOTE=Lust4Life]
In Singapore I read somewhere,the various ethnic groups that make up the population are banned by law from all living in certain neighbourhoods to prevent ghettoisation and to stop any ethnic group from staying detached from the mainstream culture.

From what I’ve seen in the media it appears to work well.

During the Malayan crisis the communist terrorists tended to be ethnic Chinese as opposed to the rest of the population,maybe thats why Singapore brought this law in but just a guess on my part.
[/QUOTE]

I think that it’s generally a good thing to be exposed to other cultures by living with different ethnic groups in your neighborhood. I know I benefited from it while growing up, especially since I was living in two worlds in my own household with one immigrant parent and one American parent. Then again, living in a community where you actually get to know your neighbors helps keep out some of the animosity toward clusters of people of one ethnic group or another.

Chique, I think you’re taking for granted the positive cultural experiences that the local immigrant population can get from interacting with strangers of a different culture. Yes, there are going to be bigoted assholes out there, and, depending on where you live, there may be a lot of them. It doesn’t mean that these immigrants’ lives are completely bereft of kind souls who happen to be from a different culture than they are, which is what you seem to be implying. It may not be much, but maybe Fadumo taking her kids to the public library or some other place where she can get more exposure to positive interactions with the “native population” will help her realize that not everyone in this new land are out to get her. From what it says in your location info, it appears you’re up in the Midwest, and from what I’ve heard, it’s pretty homogeneous there, so that is probably a big part of why she feels so strange to others. My own experience with people who grew up in small pockets of the Midwest is that they tend to be a bit amazed (and sometimes shocked) at differences between them and their fellow Americans; it may just be a situation where she feels like there aren’t enough native Midwesterners that have shown her the kinder side of the American spirit.

I honestly don’t know why skin color has to play such a large role in all of these debates. Aren’t some of us beyond invalidating others’ experience because of the color of their skin?

23

I live in Nashville and I got to watch people voting for the Iraqi government. At the time I felt like dancing with them! This was in my neighborhood and I found that very exciting. I have often wished that I could know more of my neighbors better. They come from many countries

The day after the Trade Center was bombed, my husband and I made it a point to have lunch in a very small local Middle Eastern restaurant. It was our way of saying that we still had faith in most Muslims. If we can do that, then maybe your friend can at least go to a small American restaurant with you on the Fourth of July and have a hotdog. Sometimes you just have to have a little faith in people – including those whose names end in ski and son.

On a recent trip through Alabama – from top to bottom and back again – I noticed that the races there seem to intermingle more than in Tennessee. I didn’t see the division into groups as much. Don’t get me wrong about Tennessee. Relationships are still cordial. But there was something more relaxed in Alabama. I noticed this in everything from a city’s ballet to something as mundane as a Waffle House.

24

[QUOTE=Acid Lamp]
You are out of line. I never suggested anything of the sort, and frankly your hyperbole is offensive as hell.
[/quote]
Apologies; it wasn’t really directed at you as much as it was at the people I mentioned in the OP. Sorry you got caught in the “crossfire”.

Anyhow, regarding the rest of the comments, Somali Muslims and Sudanese Christians comprise about 4% of the local population - they can’t HELP but work and shop with the rest of the population, and many are active in specifically cross-cultural events with organizations like the university and the multi-cultural center. But I haven’t seen any at parades or 4th of July stuff, and I don’t blame them a bit.

I don’t have words to respond to Evil Captor that won’t get me banned.

25

[QUOTE=chique]
I don’t have words to respond to Evil Captor that won’t get me banned.
[/QUOTE]

Is there some part of what I posted that is untrue? I don’t think so. If you’ve got some logic or some facts that make what I say false, lay it out. I’ve noticed a lot of people on the Dope get very upset if you (well, I and some others) discuss the entirely predictable results of group behavior, whether those groups be Catholics, Muslims, Jews, evangelical Christians, Rotarians, Democrats or whatever. Especially though if we discuss the religious groups, especially especially the Jews and the Muslims, who get in arguments so fierce and involved that you need a degree in Middle Eastern history just to know who’s upset about what.

I truly understand that Muslims as individuals can be fine and wonderful human beings, and that this is true of almost any religious group, or other group. That doesn’t change the fact that the groups tend to have cultures that dispose them toward some kinds of beliefs rather than others. I and many American feminists have a VERY low opinion of the behaviors created by some aspects of Islamic culture as expressed in many countries. I’ll not apologize for that, it’s an accurate view of what there is out there. I want nothing like that in America. Neither should anyone else who wants an egalitarian culture in America. I’ll not apologize for that, either.

26

[QUOTE=chique]
Apologies; it wasn’t really directed at you as much as it was at the people I mentioned in the OP. Sorry you got caught in the “crossfire”.

Anyhow, regarding the rest of the comments, Somali Muslims and Sudanese Christians comprise about 4% of the local population - they can’t HELP but work and shop with the rest of the population, and many are active in specifically cross-cultural events with organizations like the university and the multi-cultural center. But I haven’t seen any at parades or 4th of July stuff, and I don’t blame them a bit.

[/QUOTE]

I have a question for you. I, personally, deal with all people as Americans, and I get a kick out of meeting people from different cultures and countries, I want to know more about them to broaden my own experiences. I realize that not everyone is like me, however, and my question is this: Why should Joe Six Pack make an effort to be inclusive towards your Somali friend if your Somali friend is not making an effort to be part of the local community? Also, even if Joe Six Pack’s attitudes are distant from or even hostile to your friend, don’t you think that your friend holding himself apart from society is only going to exacerbate these attitudes?
Oh, and please get your friend whose resume was shredded to contact the appropriate officials, that shit just ain’t right. We have too many laws and government agencies in this country already, but this is exactly the type of situation that they were designed to and are supposed to address. I’d love to see a company that would do that nailed to the wall. Hard.

27

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
I truly understand that Muslims as individuals can be fine and wonderful human beings, and that this is true of almost any religious group, or other group. That doesn’t change the fact that the groups tend to have cultures that dispose them toward some kinds of beliefs rather than others. I and many American feminists have a VERY low opinion of the behaviors created by some aspects of Islamic culture as expressed in many countries.
[/QUOTE]
In very, VERY rare cases, I agree. About once a year over the past five I have personally witnessed a mother take her 6- to 10-year-old daughter back to Kenya to visit a sick family member. They tend to come from families who believe that education is unimportant; that women are useless and are nothing more than posessions; get arrested for domestic assault; and can’t hold a job. Oddly enough, in my professional life, the percentage of Somalis who fall into this category is roughly the same as the percentage of German-Scandinavian Minnesotans who fall into this category. Whodathunk.

During those same five years I have had very frank and open conversations with both men and women regarding family and sexual relations. The upshot is that if you sincerely believe that women in Muslim cultures don’t have a voice or aren’t respected for their brains…well, you’re stereotyping. Third world “honor killings” make headlines over here but no one seems willing to draw correlations between those horror stories and the estimated 4,000 American woman who are killed by their partners or family members every year for the exact same “macho” reasoning.

I am not talking about any set of laws that governs any foreign state - particularly those states which seem to have an official hard-line anti-women statutes but simultaneously allow their wealthy elite females to party hard in SoHo (either continent).

I am not, in any way, shape, or form condoning or turning a blind eye to the perceived “problems” the average American* sees with our Muslim population. I’m simply frustrated that it’s seen as a “Muslim” problem instead of a “fundamentalist religous” problem or a “misogynistic” problem - and, really, you just have to google up “texas foster care fundamentalist” to see that the same women-as-property issue is alive and well in certain segments of home-grown caucasion American society.

[QUOTE=Weirddave]
Why should Joe Six Pack make an effort to be inclusive towards your Somali friend if your Somali friend is not making an effort to be part of the local community?
[/QUOTE]
Joe Six Pack could stop making rude comments about Fadumo’s “bedsheets” or Mohamoud’s “raghead” (even though no Somali man wears turbans and only a few wear short, white, fez-type hats and long robes on their Friday Sabbath). If Joe Six Pack absolutely MUST make such a comment, Joe could at least hold his tongue until he either knows whether or not the person about which he is speaking understands English or - at the very least - wait until that person is out of earshot. It’s only polite.

Joe Six Pack could have as much patience with a person with a Somali accent as he does with his Polish gramma. For that matter, Joe could take a moment to wonder if the people who bring him his drinks on his all-inclusive vacation at a Mexican resort laugh at his pathetic attempts at Spanish as much as he laughs at someone earnestly trying to speak and learn English.

Joe Six Pack could, over his beers, wonder about the challenges he would face and how he would start over again in Finland (for example, but Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands would work) if his own country erupted into a civil war to which he was unable to return, and make some attempt to correlate his imagined experiences with the actual experiences of the “fucking Al Qaeda guy” he works with.

Despite what his email forwards tell Joe Six Pack, refugees DO have to pay taxes. Yes, yes - I know Joe was on my newspaper’s website complaining about the article (now archived, unfortunately) that talked about tax agencies targeting Somalis, but that was the same Joe Six Pack who complained about non-English-speaking refugees when the same newspaper highlighted the lack of funding to and long waiting lists for adult ESL classes. That last? That’s when I decided that Joe Six Pack is a sub-sentinent rock and would be better served fucking himself with his longneck: Bitching about an article featuring non-English speakers who are desperate to learn English? For real? “MY grampa didn’t need no stinking ESL classes!” Yeah, right. Joe, your grampa worked in the quarries all his life because he COULDN’T read and write English; why do you think he beat your father’s ass every time he got a C on your report card?"

But those are could/would/should’ves. Joe Six Pack, realistically, doesn’t have to do a goddamn thing. Free country and all that, y’know? Joe Six Pack is as free to make fun of people different from him as they are free to avoid him. You, personally, may be a really nice guy, or you may be a racist bigot; how is someone who’s been here a year - someone who watched family members die because of something as ephemeral as “tribe” - to tell the difference? Pared down to bare bones it’s fear on both sides: Refugees are afraid you’re a member of the KKK; Joe Six Pack is afraid they’re members of Al-Qaeda. Whose responsibility is it to drop their guard first?

I need to make clear that I’m typing specifically about refugees. My sister’s Puerto Rican in-laws have lived in central (not even Dade County! Palm freakin’ Beach!) FL for 30 years and can’t order at the McDonald’s drive through; I think that’s pathetic. I’m talking about a group of people who have lived here for one year, 5 years, 15 years at best who are expected to speak perfectly grammatical English and run around half-naked in summer (because people from East Africa don’t know how to dress for 85F :rolleyes: ).

*I keep typing “American” here. I know that other countries, particularly the UK and France, are having the same issues we have. I don’t have blinders on; I’m just typing from what I know from personal experience.