Looks like it’s Somali Sunday here at RRW. Sure hope it won’t turn into Somali week!
It is not some bad ol’ edgy newspaper or rightwing blogger feeling the heat, but in what has to be juicy irony a long-time refugee agency that is a mecca of multicultural love and understanding in Seattle is facing the heat from Somali protestors.
The protestors who stood outside of Refugee Women’s Alliance on Friday were angry that one of its staff members had the naivete’ to think that here in America showing a Mohammed cartoon in a discussion about freedom of speech and religion is perfectly acceptable.
Guess not! The teacher, who is from India, may be fired (but, in the meantime, she has left the country!).
From Seattle Globalist (hat tip: Pungentpeppers):
Controversy over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed hit home in Seattle recently, culminating in a protest outside of southend refugee service provider on Friday.
A group of Somali Americans gathered outside the Refugee Women’s Alliance (ReWA) on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way to demand the resignation of a teacher who showed the cartoons to her teenage students on the day after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.
“We’re not gonna be silent when it’s something that’s not right,” said Hassan Aden, who was one of between 15 to 20 people who attended the protest. “We’re trying to show that we’re not happy with what she did.”
The teacher, Deepa Bhandaru, recently earned her Ph.D from the UW Political Science department, and works for ReWA teaching a free class on world affairs for youth, where she showed the cartoons during a lesson on free speech and religious pluralism.
There is more! Continue reading here.
The cartoon and another story on the demonstration can be found here.
Be sure to have a look at the most recent Form990 for Refugee Women’s Alliance just one of the hundreds of contractors and subcontractors living off the taxpayers to help the ‘stranger’. In 2013 its total income (p. 9) was $5.5 million and $4.4 million came from government grants. It reaped another $600,000 from child care income (some of that was probably subsidized by taxpayers too)!
What is wrong with this picture—we pay to feed, clothe, house and educate them and get a kick in the teeth as a reward!
See our two previous posts just today (here and here) on Somalis—gosh we would be so bored without them!
Seattle isn’t just about Seahawks—it is one of the top cities that “welcomed” Somalis over the last two decades. Scroll down this handy list of all the refugee resettlement contractors. On page 36 you will see who is responsible in Washington State.
Addendum: Just remembered our December post about Somalis demanding more housing in Seattle, here.