Update November 29th: As soon as we get the paper from Emporia we will let you know details of the standing room only meeting last night.
The citizens of Emporia, Kansas have been asking questions for weeks and hope that tomorrow evening’s meeting and a Thursday meeting with their Congressman will bring some much-needed answers as to why their small city might become a Somali immigrant magnet. Today’s Emporia Gazette editorial says,
A few people, admittedly, are upset because the refugees are black and because they are Muslims. There is nothing that can be done to make those people happy. The Somalis will stay black and they will stay Muslim. It is who they are.
——
More people are uncomfortable because it seems to them that the Somalis are not making enough of an effort to assimilate into the community. Those folks might find some comfort in a better understanding of the assimilation process. Except in rare cases, assimilation is a process that takes at least a generation. The first generation always has its hands full trying to feed and clothe its families and make some sense out of the strange new culture that surrounds it. It is the children, not the adults, who eventually assimilate.
This last is wishful thinking. Sure some of the next generation will go on to bigger things and we hope they do, but I think one need only look at Paris burning tonight to see the folly in this thinking. Those African Muslim youths rampaging at this moment are the children of immigrants France brought in for the cheap labor. They are the next generation! Isn’t this kind of a crap shoot, what makes us think that this would never happen in America?
But what bothers Emporians most is what seems to be a complete lack of any effort by local, state or federal government or by Tyson Fresh Meats to prepare the community to receive the refugees. When the Somalis arrived, there were no organized support services prepared to receive them and no one with a clear idea of what would be required of the community.
This is the same old story we are hearing everywhere. I hope the citizens of Emporia get the answers they need in the next couple of days, but I won’t hold my breath. My prediction is that the government/business/non-profit groups will talk peoples’ ears off and the questions will go largely unanswered. Please read about the Delphi Technique here so that you will be better prepared for this meeting, actually it might even give you a chuckle as you watch the strategy unfold before your eyes.
Kind of ironic that this should appear in the Israel News today: “Judge Sentences Somali Immigrant in US Shopping Mall terror plot.”
For a complete list of all the stories in the Emporia Gazette on this issue go here.
To get an understanding of what the folks of Emporia are saying, go to this unique feature at the Gazette, a public forum exclusively for this topic here. Kudos to the Gazette for giving citizens an opportunity to speak!
Atlas Shrugs wrote about the Somali refugee issue here today.
Also, we have a new category entitled “Emporia, KS controversy” so that readers can more readily find all of our coverage of this important case.