…..so they could never get it together to establish Shariah law.
This is a comment from a reader named Some1notsomali to an old post (Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis?) and he is responding to Allahsoldier (a commenter, an African American convert, who hasn’t been around for awhile).
One of the things that Some1notsomali points out so well is that one cannot compare how immigrants to America fared a hundred years ago BEFORE WE HAD THE MODERN WELFARE STATE that Somalis and others have learned to use to its fullest.
Some1notsomali (but apparently a Muslim):
Salaam Allah Soldier,
I read your posts and would like to offer you my thoughts on Somalis.
But first I would like to let you know that I understand where you coming from. For any black American their is no doubt that this country did wrong to their ancestors and that today it continues to fail black America.
For all those who want to blame the AA (African American) community for it’s ills you need to realize that it is Majority America that is policing her neighborhoods, dictating her laws, educating her children etc… Since Majority America reserves its exclusive right to do these things it should take responsibility for the shortcomings of such a historic and very American community.
Now about Somalis. It should be noted that the elders generally rely on social assistance, although a number of them are at least partially employed. Among the youth they almost without question have some kind of employment and although I would say care giver is a common occupation and one that is less popular among native born Americans, you do see Somalis working in more respectable fields and also in customer service (the existence of their community creates a need for native speakers in the social services and businesses).
The youth are also able to benefit from educational assistance because of their parents low incomes and because their jobs are usually either low paying or part time, under 15k annually.
This country has done so much to help Somalis and other refugee communities, it has given their parents monthly income, paid for the youths education all the way to a bachelors degree, and every Somali I have met has nothing but contempt for this country. Even worse is that because so much affluence (disposable income) exists in some households because the youth all have jobs, live at home and have of the basic needs of the family being met by the elders unearned income (section 8 housing, welfare, food stamps, passing excess children around for earned income tax credit) [I suspected the earned income tax credit was being used this way, so its nice to see confirmation—ed] crime is attractive to the youth who can’t find jobs. With the economy not improving this will become worse, and the criminal elements within this community are becoming more sophisticated, a prostitution ring was recently busted in MN.
RR is wrong to be concerned with Shariah …
Somalis are a very dysfunctional community. The women often have relationships with men (even sex, and even the ones who wear jilbab), it is extremely common. To them religion is a revolving door, the hijab is something worn as a convenience, either to feel pious or as a fashionable article. Unlike Pakistani Pathan and Arab Yemeni communities Somali’s do not seem viable candidates for living in a state within a state societies. Most families have absentie fathers and the few with a male head of the household often have a step father and not the original father. Combine this with big city environment most live in and you will see that your fears of a shariah community are not realistic. No one in the family is strong enough to dictate how others should live within the family, unlike Yemeni and certain Pakistani communities. With that said many do have attachments to their mothers, so although the traditional concept of family does not pervade their society, certain tradition which you will never have to deal with (primarily marriage ceremonies) will be dictated by the mother.
So I guess what this means is that they can’t organize themselves to push for Shariah law (but by comparison the Pakistanis and Yemenis could?) However, those Somali youths who went off to Jihad training seemed to be pretty good at organizing, here.