I’ve written about this subject before (here is one recent post)—how Native Americans and Somalis have been feuding in Minneapolis but now a new wave of love and peace (or so we are told) is washing over a section of Minneapolis where Somalis were resettled in parts of the city that Native Americans had deemed their own.
Here is a story from last week that gives us some of the background. The federal government in its infinite wisdom wanted to get Native Americans off the reservation in the 50’s and 60’s and get them to “assimilate” in cities.
From the Star Tribune:
Old and new federal policies created the collision of cultures along Franklin Avenue.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the federal government relocated many American Indians from reservations to cities.
“The idea was to assimilate us. Get us off the reservation,” said Terri Yellowhammer, an attorney and Friendship Committee member.
Thousands of Indians moved to Minneapolis. Most settled in the East Phillips neighborhood, making it home to one of the largest concentrations of urban Indians in the country.
Franklin Avenue became known as “Indian country,” and to this day, the street holds a special place in American Indian history. Civil rights activists met there in the 1960s and 1970s and founded the American Indian Movement. [Interesting bit of information isn’t it?]
The first housing project in the nation to give preference to American Indians was built near Franklin.
Today, the avenue is seeing a renaissance, having just been designated the “American Indian Cultural Corridor,” with banners hanging from streetlights and new Indian-owned art spaces and businesses opening.
Then came the Somalis and the clash of cultures!
Wade Keezer, another Friendship Committee member, remembers when the first wave of Somali refugees started appearing on south Minneapolis streets in the early 1990s, the women covered head to toe in flowing fabrics.
“I thought they were some new type of Catholic nun,” he said.
The federal government chose Minnesota as a resettlement site for the thousands escaping Somalia’s bloody civil war. Many came to the East Phillips neighborhood where rent was cheap. [and the Minnesota welfare was good—ed]
Soon, Somali-owned businesses* started opening, and the grumbling began.
Now, at least according the Leftwing media, they are all trying to patch things up. But, I bet it’s like Lewiston, ME where the animosity continues just below the surface. [note to RRWHAT?, a reporter friend of mine just made a little trip to Lewiston].
Sometime if you have extra time, visit our category on ‘community destabilization’ where we discuss how far-left Alinskyites (and Soros groupies, like the Asst. Secretary for Refugees in the State Dept) know that by creating chaos they can ultimately bring ‘change’ in our form of government. After all, people living in Norman Rockwell-like towns have no interest in bringing down capitalism, but stressed-through-conflict and destabilized people dependent on government do.
* More on these refugee businesses in an upcoming post.