Category: Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy

Grand Island: some sort of grand experiment?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Blulitespecial sent us several links from the Grand Island Independent about Grand Island’s annual Multicultural Coalition’s meeting yesterday.   I’m wondering if the “talkers” discussed the New York Times front page story that came out yesterday morning about the discord in towns like Grand Island as Somali Muslims intimidate other minority cultures to stay silent.   See the photo of Somali community organizer here, real friendly looking fellow isn’t he?

Looks like Grand Island might be a focal point for some serious community organizing since the keynote speaker is obviously a well-traveled one.  One story begins:

GRAND ISLAND —

If the United States is going to bring true justice to all its people, it must start with a very simple task: talk.

That was the challenge Dr. Gloria WilderBrathwaite gave to the Grand Island Multicultural Coalition’s fourth annual One Day Conference on Thursday morning.

“One of the most damaging things that can happen to our nation is silence,” she said. “And it is in the bowels of silence that injustice feeds.”

You know what really ticks me off about this admonition to talk is that she really doesn’t want you to talk unless you talk in politically correct diversity-is-beautiful mumbo-jumbo talk.  The whole tone of this article is meant to shut up anyone who might want Grand Island to go back to a simpler time of midwestern American character.

And she isn’t there just to act as a psyco-analyst for a conflicted town, this community organizer is there to urge people to political action.

“It’s cruel to sit at a church and pack Thanksgiving baskets and then turn around and vote against an increase in the minimum wage after 10 years (at $5.15),” she said.

But the initial step — and the one she commended the Multicultural Coalition for committing to through Thursday’s conference — is beginning honest, open-ended dialogues aimed at understanding one another’s needs and differences.

That, she said, is the most basic way to build the fundamental building block of justice: trust.

“It’s required that we trust each other. It’s required to be part of a community,” WilderBrathwaite said. “And yet, it’s the thing we lose most.”

“Talk,” “justice,” “trust,” “dialogue,” “understanding,”  but only the right sort, forget it and shut up if you don’t want to invite the world to your hometown.  

 “….it is in the bowels of silence that injustice feeds.”   Yup, and I can name something else in those bowels!

More links from the Grand Island Independent  can be found here and here.    African dancing too might help you overcome your concern about Somalis in town.  There is one problem however, and that is that strict Muslims, as the Somalis are, don’t dance.

Just a reminder, the roots of radical Islam were planted in Greeley, CO in 1952 and it was over the obscene practice of dancing!   More here.

Mainstream media discovers the Somali meatpacker conflict

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

First it was the New York Times this morning and now it appears that USA Today is in on the action.  In this case, I really am glad the mainstream media reporters are a bunch of sheep.

“Prayer leads to work disputes” in USA Today doesn’t add a whole lot of new information from what we have been telling you for a month or so now, but check out the photo of one of the Somalis planning to file a complaint.  

Abdi Mohamed, 28, came to the USA as a refugee from Somalia a year ago. For most of his eight months at the Grand Island plant, his boss let him slip away for seven minutes at sunset to pray in the locker room, allowing him to balance his job cutting beef with a tenet of Islam.

“Anytime I’m not (praying), I’m damaging my relationship with God,” he says through a translator.

Mohamed, who lost his job Sept. 19, says he plans to file a discrimination complaint. “We are refugees to this country,” he says, “and now we are made to be refugees within America.”

That is one mean looking dude on the right.  The complaint filer must be the one on the left.  If anyone has a little investigation time, I bet the one on the right (the mean dude) is one of the community organizers.  Could it be mouthpiece Graen Isse?

By the way, hurry on over to USA Today  where a lot of hot comments are flying around on this story.  Once before when USA Today did something controversial about refugees the comments were very quickly yanked.

For new readers there are a couple of posts you need to check out.   The first is our research on how many Somalis have been admitted to the US by the State Department here.   And, the other is that as a result of DNA testing that showed that 80% of East Africans (including Somalis) trying to enter the US through the family reunification part of refugee resettlement were committing fraud, the program is presently suspended.

Somali conflicts in meatpacking towns make the New York Times

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update October 17th:   Read all the comments at the NYT about this article here.

Update:  I have been out all morning and in my travels I picked up today’s New York Times (only the second copy I’ve bought in years) and this Somali story is on the front page ABOVE THE FOLD.  Amazing!

 

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this link at the Religion of Peace blog this morning.  It is from the New York Times of all places and it’s a pretty thorough discussion of the tension growing in small town America over the arrival of Somali refugees.   The article entitled, “Somali influx unsettles Latino meatpackers” begins:

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Like many workers at the meatpacking plant here, Raul A. Garcia, a Mexican-American, has watched with some discomfort as hundreds of Somali immigrants have moved to town in the past couple of years, many of them to fill jobs once held by Latino workers taken away in immigration raids.

Mr. Garcia has been particularly troubled by the Somalis’ demand that they be allowed special breaks for prayers that are obligatory for devout Muslims. The breaks, he said, would inconvenience everyone else.

“The Latino is very humble,” said Mr. Garcia, 73, who has worked at the plant, owned by JBS U.S.A. Inc., since 1994. “But they are arrogant,” he said of the Somali workers. “They act like the United States owes them.”

Read it all, it is choke full of all sorts of interesting information.    The only thing missing is any discussion about the US State Department’s role in bringing all the Somalis here in the first place.  See our numbers post here.

And, just as I said in many previous posts, the Somalis have brought in community organizers to try to tamp down the multicultural anger toward the demanding Somalis!

Xawa Ahmed, 48, a Somali, moved to Grand Island from Minnesota last month to help organize the Somali community. A big part of her work, Ms. Ahmed said, will be to help demystify the Somalis who remain.

The New York Times needs to ask the follow-up question.  Who is paying these community organizers?

Greeley, CO Update: Somali community organizers meet with city officials

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Things appear to have been quiet in Greeley, Co since all the hubbub over Somalis being fired at the Swift meatpacking plant a few weeks ago.   I previously surmised it was because CAIR is involved and a lawsuit is in the works.   

Here is a story from a few days ago reporting that Somali community organizers are meeting with town officials to be sure “what happened at Swift doesn’t happen again.”   Hat tip:  Blulitespecial.  So what does that mean?   What does the town have to do with a labor/management issue.    It looks to me like the Somalis are expecting some sort of special treatment.

The Tribune article begins:

A group of East African residents has begun monthly meetings with Greeley leaders following last month’s dispute about prayer breaks at JBS Swift & Co., and subsequent firing of about 120 Muslim workers.

Five members of the East African Community Council met with social service representatives, Realizing Our Community and Greeley Mayor Ed Clark earlier this week. The next meeting is planned for Nov. 3 at the Greeley Recreation Center.

Members of the East African Council, some of whom tried to mediate the dispute between JBS Swift and the Muslim workers, on Monday gathered information about local education, social service and employment options for the local East African community.

The point of the dialogue with city leaders, said council member Graen Isse, is “so what happened at Swift won’t happen again.”

About 16 of the fired workers got their jobs back at JBS Swift, Isse said, while another 20 found employment elsewhere in town. About 50 to 60 in the group are still looking for work, he said, and they are generally looking for assembly or cleaning jobs where they don’t have to speak English.

Yes, no sense knocking yourselves out learning English.

The article is pretty ho-hum but check out the comments, they are pretty lively.  One commenter asked if the meetings are open to the public.  I assume Colorado has an open government law where meetings involving elected officials are open,  and those of you who want to attend should just attend!

For readers trying to catch up on this story we have an entire category on it here.

Somali leaders: Tyson is great so come on over to Lexington, NE

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to this story in the Lexington Clipper-Herald, a job at Tyson is waiting for all the Somalis who would like to come to this welcoming town.

Ismail Ibrahim, treasurer of the Somali Community Center in Lexington, and an interpreter at Tyson said that since the walkouts and firings at the JBS Swift & Co. plants in Grand Island and Greeley, Colo., hundreds of Muslim workers, mostly Somalis who walked off the job alleging they weren’t being allowed to pray and break their daily fast, have traveled to Lexington to apply at Tyson.

“Tyson respects our race and religion,” said Ibrahim.

He said that about 150 people from Swift in Grand Island who have traveled here to apply at the Lexington Tyson plant, are awaiting interviews, and more are on their way.

In case you didn’t get how great Tyson is the first time you read it, the reporter tells us again:

Ibrahim says that right now Muslims are coming every day from other factories in other towns. He says that this is because of the faith-based accommodations Tyson makes.

“Tyson is the best company that respects our religion,” said Ibrahim. “They’re faith friendly, and we appreciate that.”

Lexington, NE is a “welcoming” city:

Mohamed said that there are around 200 people in Lexington right now who are homeless and are staying with others who have been helping the community center with the influx of Somalis. In some cases, he explained, there are more than 10 people in one room.

Mohamed said that Lexington’s Tyson human resources manager has been “extremely helpful” and that he is optimistic that most will find jobs here in Lexington, but transition will be tough.

According to Ibrahim and Mohamed the Somali community in Lexington has not experienced the prejudices that others have seen in other parts of the country, and that so far the community has been very welcoming.

A gold star to the first reader who sends us a link when Lexington turns “unwelcoming.” 

And, btw, it would be interesting to know how much taxpayer money is going to the Somali Community Center.

For new readers, here is our archive on the problems experienced by Swift in Greeley, CO and Grand Island, NE that Mr. Ibrahim refers to above.