I couldn’t help seeing the irony yesterday when I posted on how Denmark is attempting to break up ethnic ghettos that have developed in certain housing projects in that country, see here, while we in the US are still building our ethnic enclaves even using tax dollars to do it!
And, before you move on, don’t miss Leo Hohmann last night who posted on a startling comment from German Chancellor Angela Merkel—yes, she admitted they have no-go zones in some German cities.
In Seattle they are literally building-in separateness!
So much for assimilation!
Although I am not sure the grant money is still flowing from the feds (the Office of Refugee Resettlement) to specific ethnic groups as it had been several years ago, this local grant continues the foolish idea of separating needy people by their ethnicity (country of origin).
How on earth do political leaders and grantmakers expect assimilation to ever happen when division and special treatment by country of origin is encouraged!
I wonder if someone formed a club entitled say: Americans of British Ethnicity Youth Club, would it even be permitted to exist let alone get nearly a million bucks from taxpayers?
Somali Youth & Family Club gets nearly a million dollars for after school programs for Somalis
From the South Seattle Emerald:
A crowd of young Somali girls has just finished an hour of basketball. Now they head to the classroom upstairs for tutoring, and of course an occasional dance to Drake’s “God’s Plan.”
These girls, most of them first-generation immigrants, are Skyway residents in the Somali Youth & Family Club, a nonprofit program which holds afterschool programs in Skyway’s Creston Point Apartments. Creston Point has almost 500 units, and many of the residents are Somali immigrants and refugees.
Around 100 Somali youths are in the program, which holds sessions five days a week and allows children of all ages to participate. Members can receive tutoring, play basketball, read and write poetry, and swim.
The nonprofit program is able to run events like this thanks in part to a recent $855,000 grant from King County’s Best Starts for Kids initiative. The grant more than doubled the program’s budget, according to Kelsey Dale, Education Program Manager for the Somali Youth & Family Club. [Let’s see, $855,000 divided by 100 kids=$8,550 per Somali kid—ed]
The program started in 2007, and is currently overseen by Aden Hussein, a Somali immigrant who came to Skyway in 1999. Hussein says the program has been remarkably successful.
What is Drake’s “Gods Plan,” I wanted to know.
Apparently it is a song that is all the rage in the last few weeks.
The lyrics are here.
You can listen here (if it isn’t visible in your e-mail, then come to RRW see it or search for it on the net).
And here is a story about what five religious leaders say about the song and Drake giving out money in the music video.
The Islamic leader says this about it:
Mona Haydar, The Islamic Center at NYU, New York, NY
“The video had me in tears and made me wish that we would talk seriously about things like reparations in America for indigenous and Black peoples. It made me think about stolen lands and stolen peoples and the inequity we see as a result of those oppressions and how we become numb to it like the way we come to see poverty as simply the condition of a people instead of a symptom of systemic infrastructural injustice. People say that the system is broken and I don’t believe that’s true — I think the system is fully functional and is rigged the way it is to keep some people up and some people down. The video reminded me of unfettered capitalism and the destruction of our Earth mother.
Sigh…..
This is a song and video you might want to keep away from your children, just saying!