Maine mayor: 'Somalis should leave culture at door'

Don't you guys know that Islamaphobes from Australia and Germany are considered to be the most well informed commentators of American cultural assimilation? Duh.

 

Never heard of Hmong before, had to google them. Interesting.

I'm not taking anything - I did some online research to see if the crime stats of Somalis were indeed higher than others' and provided facts about various countries where their crime rates are indeed up to 5 times higher than those of other immigrant groups or the general population. I also posted an MSNBC article that referred to higher crime rates in that subsegment of the population.

You on the other hand are taking anecdotal evidence (which is insight I appreciate) of good neighbors and extrapolating it to "all Somalis are better immigrants than all Hmong" and comparing Somalis to Irish.

And yeah, I think Irish are more drunk than others on average. Are you disputing that?

 

I'm replying to my own post because the new-age Know Nothings don't seem to understand how history works.

 

Your post makes a good point which is taken (although I doubt that the Irish had an inability to communicate clearly in English ).

However, if you think one step further, how were the problems with Irish and Italian immigrants addressed?

Correct - they were met with the full force of the law if they were not law-abiding, rather than catering to their demands.

And that's all I would expect now as well.

 

Yes and I have taken a look at your online research and in the article about rapes in Denmark it's headlines is "Every Second Rape Sentenced is a Foreigner" which is correct but the stats it shows are these.
http://translate.google.com/transla...nmark/hveranden-voldtaegtsdoemt-er-udlaending
[rquoter]Rape in figures

Convicted of rape in 2010

Danes 32

Iraqis and their descendants 7

Iranians and their descendants 4

Turks and descendants 4

Lebanese and descendants 3

Somalis and descendants 2

Afghans and descendants 2 [/rquoter]

So for the group the subject of the discussion Somalis only accounted for 2 out of 54 rapes or 4% of the rapes in Denmark. Doing some further research I find that the total population of Denmark is 5.5 million and the Somali population is about 16,600 so Somalis account for 3% of the Denmark's population. So for the crime of rape that percentage is about even to their percentage of population. Not good but not indicative that they are more criminal than other groups.

For your second link the piece does state that some immigrant groups are more likely to be overrepresented in crime but reading through it I only see two instances of Somalis being mentioned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime
[rquoter]The overall probability that a person living in Norway would be convicted for a felony (no: forbrytelse) was increased by about 0.5 percentage points for the immigrant compared to non-immigrant populations for felonies committed in the years 2001-2004. The incidence was especially high among immigrants from Kosovo, Morocco, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Chile, and reached more than 2% in all these groups. In comparison, the incidence in the non-immigrant population was about 0.7%.[/rquoter]
Here Somalis are mixed into a list of several other immigrants we don't have specific information on Somalis except that they reached more than 2% of the likelihood they would be convicted of a felony. We don't know how that compares with the other groups or for that matter with Native Norwegians of the same socio economic level.

The second reference is this
[rquoter]According to police statistics, Sudanese and Somali-born Victorians are about five times more likely to commit crimes than the wider community. The statistics show the rate of offending among the Sudanese community is 7109.1 per 100,000, while for Somali people it is 6141.8 per 100,000. The figure for the wider community is 1301.0 per 100,000. It is important to note that the overall proportion of crimes statewide committed by the Sudanese and Somali communities is only 0.92 per cent and 0.35 per cent respectively, and that people arrested and charged may falsely identify themselves as being from those communities. For both Sudanese and Somalis, assault offences are the most common type, constituting 29.5 per cent and 24.3 per cent of all offences respectively.[28][/rquoter]

Note though there are a couple of key points here. The first is that it refers to "Somali born" which means that it is referring to first generation immigrants. It doesn't say the whole Somali community so it is still possible that second generation Somalis which is important in regarding assimilation. Second is important to note that the overall percent of statewide crime committed by Somalis is only .35%.

As I stated I am not extrapolating to all Somalis but am stating first hand experience. Looking through your own statistics though it doesn't appear like that Somalis are more criminally prone than other immigrants groups and supports my contention.

If you look at statistics of alcohol consumption per capita:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption

The Irish consume 13.39 liters per year per capita. That is high but there are other countries that are higher, Czech Republic, Estonia and Andora are all higher. France is at 13.3 liters, Luxemborg at 13.1, Austria at 12.6, Portugal at 12.45. Overall yes you are correct that Ireland is above average but you have to consider that many of the countries legally forbid alcohol, much poorer than Ireland and also have larger immigrant populations of people who religiously don't drink alcohol. So there is more to those statistics.

Also that doesn't address whether Irish are inherently violent.

 

Do you think that crimes by Somali immigrants are not being met with the full force of the law? That would certainly surprise Mahdi Ali.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/10/31/mahdi-hassan-ali-sentence/

[rquoter]Minneapolis — A Hennepin County judge sentenced Mahdi Hassan Ali on Monday to three consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole for his role in a January 2010 triple homicide at the Seward Market and Halal Meat on East Franklin Street in Minneapolis. [/rquoter]

 

It's a matter of respect. And you have none. Period.

 

You've seen AroundTheWorld's posts before right? I'm not sure why you'd expect anything different.

 

The problems with the Irish and the Italians were addressed much like the problems with Somalis are now being addressed - a whole bunch of people got frightened and worked up, but despite this, the Irish and Italians eventually assimilated.

No one is 'catering' to anyone elses demands. I'm not even sure why you think that's an issue, other than the fact that you think it furthers the justification for your moral indignation.

It's a big country, and it has no trouble absorbing new people. That's what the U.S. has always done.

And, yeah, many of the early Irish immigrants spoke Gaelic.

 

I didn't answer your questions because I don't take you seriously. History has shown that any time there is a large immigration of certain types of peoples that people like you get all up in arms about the lack of assimilation and the cultural differences that are destroying the country and their desire not to learn English and become "American". And then what happens is that those new customs and traditions are assimilated into American culture and in some miracle like event they learn English, start eating McDonald's, become football fans, and are accepted as American. Then people like you move on to the next problem group that are destroying the country and the cycle repeats itself. You have no concept of history and context and really no concept of what America means and what it has always meant.

 

Dead Rabbits were here.

We are a nation of immigrants...nothing more.

 

I hope we can take a more enlightened approach to assimulate modern immigrants than how we handled the Irish and Italians (to say nothing of how we handled Africans and Native Americans). If the Irish and Italians are the model, we're looking at decades of Somali poverty, ghettoes, gangs, crime, discrimination, and race riots. I'm thinking we may as well try something different.

 

At least from a US stand point we are doing a much better job. Part of this is due to the things like the Civil Rights Act and access to better education. Also our culture has gotten more tolerant of differences. While nativist and xenophobic tendencies still exist they are no where as wide spread of as powerful as they once were.

For example Chinese immigrants (when they were even allowed in) were once limited to living in Chinatowns and some small farming communities while being denied basic civil rights. The so called model minority of Chinese and other Asian immigrants is only possible because of the opportunities available to live and work anywhere, have access to the same legal rights and also to good education.

As I've said about the Somalis many of them are opening businesses and they send their kids to school. The next generation of Somalis are moving on from service industry jobs to professional fields and white collar careers. While they have problems as a community it is unlikely they will remain mired in poverty for decades.

 

You are aware that the USA are MUCH more selective about whom they let in and absorb than other Western countries have been?