Minneapolis has a significant population of Somali's as well, and I can't say they've assimilated well. It looks like people have naturally segregated themselves in the community and you get little pockets of Somali's here and there. I know we have a few other people from Minni in here, maybe they can describe this better, but it seems like assimilation has been a difficult process. I think one of the problems about assimilation is the incoming refugees need to want to assimilate to the native culture. Often they bring their own and try to maintain that when that culture is at odds with the place they are at. There needs to be a discussion, and a maintained discussion with these groups about how to assimilate without losing their cultural identity. I think if they are unwilling to assimilate to cultural norms of they new community they are now living in, that is a very significant problem that is the source of long-term significant problems. Refugees need to be willing to accept the cultural norms of the communities they are placed in,and if not something has to be done. To fix that. What that is I have no idea, but we see these kinds of issues flaring up wherever new immigrant populations are. What those cultural norms are leaves open a huge discussion and a huge potential for abuse if legislated, but from a community standpoint, it needs to happen.
The issue with a lot of these attacks is they are 2nd generation children of immigrants. The immigrants themselves remember how shitty life in the old country was, and they understand the opportunity they've been given. The children get a romanticized view, displaced blame and growing up in the West, they assume the same opportunities exist everywhere.
Good point, lets deport second generation refugees....kidding. The idea does make sense and I agree with it intuitively.
So what exactly do people mean when they talk about assimilation and integration? If it's not against the law and it's just shit you don't like or disagree with or don't understand, doesn't trying to suppress or regulate or discourage people from doing whatever it is people are talking about spit in the face of being ~the land of the free~? Why are those enclaves a bad thing? (Although, by the way, my friend works as a realtor in Minneapolis and focuses on trying to find Somalis housing, and let's just say it's not them that are trying to only stay in their own little neighborhoods.) What's the difference between their enclaves and the Amish or Hasidic Jews or that town in Long Island founded by Nazis where the group that owns land/houses requires people who live there to be German? Are we all supposed to assimilate to the cultural norms of whatever majority there is in any given town or city? If some of those people were to move to my neighborhood are they supposed to assimilate to the cultural norms of West Indians? Why is a completely homogenous culture the ideal anyway? I just cannot wrap my mind around the concept of multiculturalism being a bad thing. It's one of my most cherished ideas of what America means. I love that I can just hop over to different ethnic neighborhoods and experience another culture for a bit. Having access to all this different food and music and fashion and customs and traditions and languages is exactly what's so great about this country, and seeing how they blend with other cultures and evolve is exciting too. It's just hard to fathom wanting homogeneity over that.
I am 100% in favour of multiculturalism. Bring it on! What I cannot stand is when one culture then tries to leverage their standing to change other cultures or expect other cultures to follow their rules. For instance, the Hasidic watchdogs in South Brooklyn who try and patrol their neighbourhoods enforcing their religion's/culture's rules on anyone who's in "their" neighbourhood. Fuck that. My basic thoughts are do your own thing as long as it doesn't break any laws or affect other people that don't buy into it. For instance, throwing acid in people's faces in the name of honour? Yeah... no. That's a bad thing. Opening a shop that features your culture's clothing or food for all to experience and enjoy? Go nuts, and more power to you. And you can fuck right off with the "cultural appropriation". Case in point: http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2...-cultural-appropriation-stealing-recipes.html If you like burritos enough to travel and learn how they're made in Mexico and then come home and open a burrito stand, more power to you. That's not cultural appropriation, that's called "I like to sell burritos and think other people will enjoy buying my burritos". More people need to be told to just shut the fuck up already.
I mean it's mostly a pissing match over bike lanes being painted in the streets. It's hardly Bill the Butcher's boys patrolling the five points.
Maybe he was talking about this kind of stuff: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/01/...uads-enforce-modesty-in-hasidic-brooklyn.html http://www.jta.org/2016/09/27/news-...d-guilty-in-brooklyn-beating-of-gay-black-man
Yes I assumed he was talking about that type of stuff, which is not troops of Haisids systematically harassing every non-Jew that walks through their neighborhood and forcing them to follow the rules of Orthodox Judaism until they leave their neighborhood, which is not a thing.
Truth be told, I don't think it was Mexican immigrants making all the fuss about that...I gathered it was Portland's perpetually aggrieved class and they couldn't find any rugs to be mad at that day. (Fun fact: The burrito is widely believed to have originated from farm workers in either California or Texas,) However, there are plenty of other examples of not assimilating: Honor killings, female gentile mutilation, thinking any female who shows more skin then the bridge of her nose is a whore and then treating them as such, carrying grievances from your country of orgin over here, refusing to learn the language, or having a convicted terrorist as the grand marshal of your civic pride day,
Yep. It's the latest in SJW... being outraged... OUTRAGED, I tell you... on behalf of others. And of course it was Portland. Exactly... "bring and share the good stuff, leave the bad shit"... I guess the "hard" part is to figure out what the bad shit is. Immigrants need to be self-aware enough to understand what that "bad shit" is and be willing to let it go, which I think is the crux of many problems. Don't flee from your shitty country and then try to rebuild it in your new country using the same cultural aspects that made it shitty in the first place. And don't be offended if/when we say, "no, throwing acid in the face of women is bad, so don't fucking do it".
There was an excellent article a couple weeks ago about a family from the Philippines that brought their slave over with them and kept her as the family slave in the US. It did have a somewhat happy ending as one of the children of the family became Americanized, realized what a horrendous thing his family had done, and took care of the woman in her old age. A long, but well worth it read.
So I'm sober and hopefully coherent. There's one thing I never said that you implied I said. I know all cultures and races have a tendency to segregate themselves within cities. I know the white population begins to leave as the Somali population moves in and as well Somali's want to be around people they are familiar with. I am not a believer in cultural equality. I don't believe all cultures are equally good. I know an instinct may be to say thats a slippery slope, but ask yourself does Nazism have the same merit as Anglo-Americanism? Does socialistic totalitarianism have the same merit of democracy? Do misogynistic cultures have the same value of feministic cultures? Some places around the world view Americans as weak because our women have so many rights and can dress as they'd like. Some places around the world view American women as sex objects only because of the way they dress. Does this idea have merit? If they move here, should they bring this idea with them? Is it ok if they maintain this idea? Are we supposed to tolerate this in the name of cultural equality and acceptance? Not that I've thrown gas on this fire let me say I am a fan of multi-culturalism, I find the suburbs incredibly boring because everything is so generic and similar, however like Net said, assimilation is necessary. North American culture does not tolerate honor killings or other such things that can happen back in their home country. If you move here, there are certain cultural expectations that yes, I think should be met, in order to be accepted into the community or at the very worst tolerated. I think learning the language is exceptionally important because it shows desire and intent to assimilate. Sounds like problems that are happening are due, in part, to immigrant groups moving to a country, then setting up towns and neighborhoods that directly resemble the country they came from and that is threatening to the people who live in that town who view that as a challenge to their pre-existing culture. Thats one of the issues people have with American commercialism. There are McDonalds and Coke everywhere, its an example of American culture being exported across the world and displacing native shops and culture. I do think attempting to learn the native language is important. If I lived in Germany, China, Vietnam, Mexico, I would do my very best to learn the native language everyday so that when I go to the store, or meet someone I can communicate effectively or tell them very sincerely I'm trying very hard to learn their language and I would appreciate their help and patience as I learn. It seems weird to me that I would move to Japan or Vietnam without trying to learn the language while I was there and preferring to stay in an only English speaking community because its easier and bringing my American customs. Maybe an example of adjusting to other cultures thats easy to digest is that women have certain clothing expectations while in the Vatican. Is it wrong for the Vatican to expect women to meet these clothing standards? Would it be wrong for a women to ignore them and then say she's being discriminated? As Net said, bring the good, leave the bad. Intuitively I think we all know what that means and can agree with that. The problem with this idea is when we get into the nitty gritty of the details and things get weird.
I had a lot of Somali employees when I was in Minnesota, and while they are very sexist, they seemed to mostly not care about how Americans did things as long as Americans didn't nag them about how they lived their lives. A lot of them didn't bother to learn English so it's kind of hard to assimilate if you don't. I've never seen anything suggesting they weren't allowed in white neighborhoods. Minnesota really isn't a very racist state. I think this is more normal than people are letting on though. Isn't this kind of typical of fresh off the boat immigrants from a lot of places? The first generation huddles together and then the kids, the second generation, tend to be more American. I will say though, the weirdest thing about the Somalis is how the men insist on having as many wives and children as possible, but a lot of them don't have much of an interest in being involved in their family's life. A lot of them would go back to Somalia every year not to visit their first, or second, or third wife, but to get another one and have them start pumping out babies too. I've traveled a lot and I'm used to weird cultural shit, but I still have trouble wrapping my head around that mentality. They just wanted more wives and kids to have more wives and more kids. Like, no actual reason. They'd send a little money back, and I'm sure communicated somewhat, but the whole thing was just really bizarre.
I didn't mean to say they aren't allowed in white neighborhoods, what I mean to say is people tend to move into areas that have populations more like themselves. So white people move to white communities, Somali to Somali communities etc.
See, shit like that is why I say that people from third world countries should be sterilized. But then that makes ME the asshole...