Erick Stakelbeck, CBN News, March 28, 2009
It has been nearly 20 years since Somalia last had a functioning government. Islamic jihadists now control most of the country-and sharia is the law of the land. Tens of thousands of Somali refugees have resettled in America in recent years to escape the chaos of their homeland, which is located in the Horn of Africa.
But the transition isn’t going smoothly in one small town.
At first glance, Shelbyville is your typical sleepy southern hamlet. It’s nestled in middle Tennessee, where the walking horse is king.
There’s Main St., the local sheriff, a movie theatre. It’s all very “Mayberry,” except for one big difference: the recent arrival of hundreds of Somali Muslims.
Small Town Having Difficulties
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So when hundreds of Somalis began turning up in the town—many of them dressed in traditional Islamic garb—locals quickly took notice.
“They’ve had an impact here. Unfortunately, it’s not been a good impact,” said Brian Mosely, a reporter for the local Shelbyville Times-Gazette.
{snip}
“I found that there was just an enormous culture clash going on here,” he said. “The Somalis were—according to a lot of the people I talked to here—were being very, very rude, inconsiderate, very demanding. They would go into stores and haggle over prices. They would also demand to see a male salesperson, would not deal with women in stores”
Different People, Different Culture
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The problems extend to local schools—where some Somali students won’t talk to female administrators. There have also been issues with local law enforcement.
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Shelbyville is home to about 17,000 people. The town’s Somali population is estimated to be between 400 and 1,000.
{snip}
“We’re talking about people who have not had any experience with Western civilization,” he explained. “They don’t know the language. Things like running water are a miracle to some of these folks . . . you don’t take people from a totally alien culture, put them into a community, and then say ‘alright, you must get along.’
Little Chance to Adapt
Abdirizak Hassan is the director of the Somali Community Center in nearby Nashville. He says the state of Tennessee has no programs to help immigrants integrate into their new surroundings.
“They come, and the only thing they can do is go to work, and then after work they go back to the apartment,” Hassan said. “They’re totally isolated and there’s no interaction between them and the locals.”
He added that some have even expressed a desire to return to Somalia.
{snip}
“And sometimes you have families, like, a single mother with eight kids, or seven kids or six kids, and you expect her to go to work in six months time with no English, no driver’s skills, nothing? I mean, sometimes it’s impossible.”
{snip}
So how did so many Somalis end up in rural Shelbyville? The answer can be complicated.
Taken in by the U.S .
The State Department helps resettle refugees from war-torn countries like Somalia in the United States. The resettlement project is one part of a taxpayer-funded refugee aid program with a billion dollar budget.
Immigrants are chosen from UN refugee camps. The selected refugees then undergo a few days of cultural orientation and are soon on their way to America.
{snip}
Pierce said the resettlement program helps improve America’s image in the eyes of the world.
{snip}
A Rocky Transition?
More than 150,000 Somalis now live in the U.S., most in larger cities like Minneapolis, Nashville, Boston, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio.
Gang activity has been a major concern. And according to the U.S. government, at least a dozen young Somali Americans have returned home in recent months to join an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group called al-Shabab.
{snip}
Motivated by Jobs
“Our experience has been that refugees are very successful at resettling,” said Holly Johnson of the Tennessee Office of Refugees.
Johnson said the federal government contracts with social welfare groups at the local level to help set the refugees up in apartments, find them jobs and ease their transition to America.
{snip}
After a few months in their settlement cities, the refugees are free to move around the country and live wherever they please.
Enter Shelbyville
Somalis in other cities were drawn to Shelbyville by the jobs offered at the local Tyson chicken processing plant.
The plant came under fire from the Department of Justice in 2001 for hiring illegal Hispanic immigrants.
{snip}
Getting Past Controversy
Despite locals’ continued complaints over its hiring practices, Tyson says it is doing things by the book. A Tyson spokesman said the company is following federal employment guidelines—and that the majority of its employees are local residents.
The Tyson plant generated national controversy last fall when it dropped Labor Day as a paid holiday in favor of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.
The decision was later reversed, but longtime local residents say the incident was symbolic of the larger changes taking place in Shelbyville—changes they are coping with as best they can.
“We’re probably as culturally diversified as any small town in America.” said Chief Swing. “There’s been a lot of changes. But I think most people just take it in stride and keep going along with it.”
Original article
(Posted on March 31, 2009)
Comments
What else would you expect when you bring a people here that couldn’t create anything close to a functioning government? This article mentions their gang activity, they are merely transverting their culture here. It won’t be long before Shelbyville has the same structural problems as Somalia.
Interesting interview article at www.traditionalvalues.org concerning who is bringing them in etc.
…..”He added that some have even expressed a desire to return to Somalia.”
How about putting those plane tickets in the stimulus bill? It would certainly save money in the long run.
I would even have a fund raiser to send them back, one at a time.
You have to be a special kind of stupid to think that anything good will come of population transfers from a country as remote, distinct and uncivilized as Somalia to small town America.
Maybe the solution is to deny “refugee” and other pro-immigrant organizations public funds, and require them to stand surety for every ragtag creature they import into this country. That would be a good start, anyway.
We have a large Somalian population here in Tucson, and everyone wonders WHY is our government allowing these people into our country in such large numbers? Their “colorful” native dress looks like clown costumes, they don’t fit in anywhere, and are shockingly stupid.
““They’ve had an impact here. Unfortunately, it’s not been a good impact.”
Somalis act the same here as they do in Somalia.
Is everyone on the left so dense they expected them to somehow make a magical transformation when they crossed our boundry?
LOL! Hillarious.
“They would also demand to see a male salesperson, would not deal with women in stores.”
Somali’s aren’t all bad. We just need some more diversity seminars for them, like there were when I was in school. Where Muslim boys on a panel have a talk with the students so we can all learn from them and become properly sensitive. Sometimes ‘education’ is not a bad thing.
“They come, and the only thing they can do is go to work, and then after work they go back to the apartment,” Hassan said. “They’re totally isolated and there’s no interaction between them and the locals.”
That sounds about like my life. Except that’s considered a good thing. For me to really be talking to other whites would be racist. And for me to interact with non-whites would be racist too, with all the advantages I hold.
Somalis are everywhere in North American. I live in Canada and have traveled extensively over this country and the United States, and everywhere I go, I see black women in veils. For Pete’s sake, they’ve moved up to the Canadian Arctic and Alaska! Going through the Minneapolis airport to catch a connecting flight, I swore I was in Africa. They’ve invaded Maine, the Dakotas, Manitoba, the far north, and I could go on and on. And given their extremely high birthrate, I wouldn’t be surprised if they quickly come to dominate a number of areas. But the catch is that they need whites in order to stay put. Without whitey providing welfare and basic civilization, Somalis will fall to pieces real fast, I’m sure.
It’s just sickening how the US government takes foreigners out of their own country. Plops them down into some small US community without once asking the people of these small communities how they feel about it. And just how does the US government expect the situation in these countries like Somalia to change when it just allows any possible opposition to just come to America. If these people don’t like the situation in their own countries make them stay there and change it. The other problem here is these people are just as fanatical in their beliefs and as nutty in their demands as the people they are supposedly escaping from.
“Little Chance to Adapt”……
…and even less Effort to Assimilate!!!
I live among a horde of Somalis here in Minnesota. My experience has been that they are a very Rude, Primitive, Corrupt, Hostile, Arrogant and Low IQ people.
This article is dead-on.
One of them rudely informed me (when I called her on her behavior) that “the rules don’t apply to us”.
Fortunately it was a temporary job, and it was one of many experiences that would contribute to my racial “awareness”.
This is another example of the government committing genocide against its own people.
I didn’t have time to read the entire article, but I didn’t see anything about the quaint Somali habit of chewing Khat, a narcotic. This part of what makes Somalia such a vibrant community, along with the universal carrying of AK-47’s. No doubt the difficulty of obtaining their daily drug fix causes considerable uneasiness amongst these regugees, as well as a great business opportunity for the more ruthless ones.
I know its been said, but really, think about it. Think about the mind set of anyone who could actually think that the outcome of this could be anything but negative. Oh I know we’ve learned about diversity and sometimes its difficult to live together or some nonsense like that…but honestly, what are these ‘refugee’ agencies thinking? We’re all going to hold hands one day and sing ‘its a small world’?
Today, whilst doing errands, I walked about 6 blocks here in this fine North American city, I passed about 10 women, 4 were in hijabs. Invasion anyone?
Does the federal government do anything right ? What sane government dumps human waste all across the nation ? Secession now, secession tomorrow and secession forever.
Somalis are everywhere in North American. I live in Canada and have traveled extensively over this country and the United States, and everywhere I go, I see black women in veils. For Pete’s sake, they’ve moved up to the Canadian Arctic and Alaska! Going through the Minneapolis airport to catch a connecting flight, I swore I was in Africa!
These people come from one of the most backward countries in Africa, one which has given the world nothing. It is so backward that at the present, and for a long time, it doesn’t even have a government! The only thing Somalis are known only for is piracy and banditry. To them, that’s a way of life; while productive labor is not part of their way of life. Nice immigrants, eh? In their homeland, they are perpetually at war among themselves and cannot even get along with their neighbors or each other. Wonderful people to invite into your home to come and live with you!
And considering how they have spread out everywhere — not only here, but even to places like Finland and Sweden — their birthrate must be enormous, surely one of the highest in the world. And we happily subsidize that! While we restrain our own births, we bring their surplus in. What fools our “leaders” and authorities are!!! They are like the naive warblers allowing the cukoos to come and lay their eggs in our nest — even inviting them to do so! The analogy is striking.
All this is being done under the misguided Marxist notion that all people are the same, all cultures are equal, and everyone is interchangeable. But that is purely a philosophical assumption, rather than a proven scientific fact. It’s a notion conconcted by people with a deeper agenda. Is it worth staking our country’s future on what is nothing more than a starry-eyed utopian dream? I would vote “no”.
First show me the stunning success stories of these Somalis, once they are brought into our societies, before I would reconsider. What have they proven themselves to be good at, other than fighting, welfare dependency, arrogant demands, and rape?
Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book ‘Infidel’.
This Somali woman gives an insiders look at how Somalis see us.
For the most part they dislike whites, but like the wealth and opportunities some whites have willingly given them. The more we give, the less respect they have for us.
In my city, the males are highly prone to forming gangs, and many begin committing violent robberies in their teens. The females take advantage of every social benefit, and reproduce with no regard for economic viability. They are very loyal to their clans, and keep in touch with the world-wide diaspora. They are rude, aggressive, and act like every charity they receive is an entitlement.
If you still don’t believe there are forces actively attempting to destroy America and in particular, its White population, then this article should do the job. This is absolute and utter madness! If this isn’t cynically, intentionally engineered to sow the seeds of deep and widespread distrust and animosity among all parties involved(but specifically among the native White population), then I’m the man in the moon!!
This is a very good example of the bizarre thinking that is becoming normal in the U. S. never any forethought is used in these decisions, the complete disregard of the wishes and welfare of the citizens in these areas is further evidence that our government is out of control, not only do we have to deal w/illegal mexican criminals, over 40 yrs. of the most failed immigration policies the world has ever known.
It seems like the government goes out of its way to settle Somalis in mostly white areas. Many of the Somalis are welfare dependent, and a drain on the local economy. This is another case of failed social engineering by “our” government.
“And sometimes you have families, like, a single mother with eight kids, or seven kids or six kids, and you expect her to go to work in six months time with no English, no driver’s skills, nothing? I mean, sometimes it’s impossible.”
They obviously were chosen for their ability to help solve the US demographic slide. All they need is a little help from the tax payer.
So were they escaping the strife or were they the ones causing it?
The insane neo-Marxist political elite seek to destroy every majority-white nation by mass immigration from the third-world. It’s happening here in the UK and other European nations also with these primitive Somalis popping up everywhere and the neo-Marxist EU opening job centres in West African countries to further increase the flood of immigrants. We are hoping for the surge of support for the nationalist BNP and the awakening of the British public to continue and that BNP candidates are elected in the June 4 Euro elections which would turn the BNP into a mainstream party overnight despite years of demonising and being totally ignored by the mainstream media. Hopefully this will set the stage for one of these pro-EU neo-Marxist governments to collapse and be replaced by a nationalist government. Then the dominoes will fall and the corrupt EUSSR Mark II will be history.
I know for a fact the reason why so many of them settled in Maine was because they started moving there en masse from Atlanta, where they were taunted by American blacks—not that this was heavily publicized of course.
Think about the mind set of anyone who could actually think that the outcome of this could be anything but negative. …but honestly, what are these ‘refugee’ agencies thinking? We’re all going to hold hands one day and sing ‘its a small world’?
On one occasion he was describing some meeting they had with Somalis, a luncheon I guess. He was, of course, ecstatic about them. You would have thought they were visitors from Heaven. They could do no wrong. He was falling all over himself, describing how graceful and “exquisite” their movements were as they ate with their hands! I swear, he would have been in raptures if they blew their noses!
This self-hating white never ceases putting down our own society and culture. This is the mentality of people so detached from reality that they think anyone who is different from ourselves is simply marvellous — and the more different they are the better. They not only regard all other cultures as equal, but actually superior to ours! Anything is better than dull, white, Christian America! So naturally they think we’ll be improved by the infusion of some Somalis. It’s doubtless the same starry-eyed mentality running these refugee agencies.
I’ve read some Stae department documents about this. The official reason the State department is doing this is that it will make us friends and allies in Somalia.
Just why do we need friends and allies in Somalia? Why do we even have to acknowledge that Somalia exists? It is not a nation. It has no government. It is lines drawn on a map.
Somalia is not Nigeria with its oil. It has no gold, oil, other minerals, cocoa, cotton, peanut, rice or other crops for sale on the international market. Who wants anything to do with it?
A reasonable person looking at this objectively can only conclude that the feminazi and minority dominated state department wants to destroy America.
Tyson and other employers of Somalians deserve exactly what they get. If Tyson and other big companies had funded anti affirmative action law suits over the last 40 years, they would be free to hire qualified, productive employees who do their work and behave decently.
By funding the affirmative action legal foundations, Tyson and other companies get the employees they deserve.
I can tell you, I absolutely rejoice at the bad news coming from Detroit. The auto companies funded affirmative action. It destroyed both the city and suburbs of Detroit and the auto industry.
Let us embrace and cherish the diversity and enrichment the Somalians bring to Minnesota:
Minnesota’s epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases climbed to a new high in 2008 with a total of 17,650 new cases. That’s 3.5 percent more than the 16,428 new cases reported in 2007, according to the Minnesota Health Department’s annual report on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. The number went up despite a significant drop in gonorrhea. The vast majority of new cases were chlamydia, 14,350 in all, said Peter Carr, director of the department’s STD section. The number climbed 7 percent from the previous year, the continuation of a 13-year trend of ever higher rates of infection. Chlamydia cases have more…
As a resident of Shelbyville Tenn, let me say we DO NOT want these people here. I don’t concider myself as racist it is not their skin color that bothers all of us. The black community here don’t want them here either, they despise them as much as everyone else does. These people are beyond rude. And never touch their left hand, we have learned they do not use toliet paper, instead they use their left hand, that is the smell most people smell from them. Tyson food hires them over all others despite what they say it is over half Somalis or more there. With all the jobs leaving our area, the life long residents can’t find jobs but the Somalis can always get hired at Tyson’s. First Tyson actually bused in the illegal Mexicans now they hire mostly the somalis. It is not fair on our Community or others around our nation either. We are being over run with people our Government has brought here or won’t stop from coming across our southern border illegally. If the government won’t do something about the mexican border Bin Ladden himself will be here soon, if not already.
I live in Shelbyville Tn. These people are even worse than they sound. Our local Health Dept. has said they come here with TB and are speading it around to all of us. They go to the grocery stores and eat food they have not paid for and refuse to pay for at the check out, like grapes, apples, banannas, or deli rolls. They need to go back somewhere else, but not here they are draining our community dry, and are not welcomed. Rude, hateful, mean and nasty don’t even come close. And they can not drive either.
Margaret:
Your point is the one I was trying to make about the banks and the current financial meltdown vis-a-vis the CRA. Like Tyson, the banks could have stopped the CRA and similar things if they wanted to, because Tyson/banks have great sway over government (lobbyists, campaign donations). Tyson didn’t stop immigration and affirmative action and banks didn’t stop CRA for the same reason — because they agree with those concepts, and the underlying anti-white racial pandering.
Somalia is not Nigeria with its oil. It has no gold, oil, other minerals, cocoa, cotton, peanut, rice or other crops for sale on the international market. Who wants anything to do with it?
Somalia is so useless that even the ETHIOPIANS are leaving it as a lost cause!!
“I live in Shelbyville Tn. These people are even worse than they sound. Our local Health Dept. has said they come here with TB and are speading it around to all of us.
Posted by Shelbyvilleian at 5:28 PM on April 1”
It’s great to know that people with TB are working in a chicken processing plant. Boycott Tyson’s
Exactly. The upper class corporate executives themselves BELIEVE in anti-white ideology. The idea that the government is forcing them to hire minorities against their will is ridiculous. Conservatives are delusional to think that. If that were true, they would have lobbied against affirmative immigration, something big business has NEVER done. Big business has been 100% supportive of affirmative action, open borders and every other anti-white policy for as long back as you can go. Big business brought blacks from the South into cities like Chicago and Detroit starting at the beginning of the 20th century for cheap labor.
At our middle school most of the Somali kids are very rude and arrogant. One kid had to have a taxi take him to-from school each day (paid for by taxpayers) because he was so violent on the bus.
This all makes sense now!!!
The government has ignored illegals for decades, letting them continue to invade and take our jobs. The gov’t wants to look good to the rest of the world, so they haul in 1,000 Somali Muslims. But where to put them? They’ll need to have jobs. So they figure, “Hmm, we can raid this Tyson plant and kick out 600 illegal aliens. This will make us look good to the conservatives. But then we’ll waive charges on Tyson as long as they hire all these Somalis we’re going to bring into town. This will make us look good to the liberals.”
You notice ICE doesn’t bother to raid places that are employing 10 illegals. They do these giant raids, get media attention for hauling off the illegals, then quietly move 1,000 Muslims into town and take those jobs. Meanwhile, the town’s residents get stuck with nasty, dirty, sexist, rude Somalis — and they still don’t get a chance at the Tyson jobs!
This is very sad to realize. I kinda feel like Neo in The Matrix. Gimme the pill that doesn’t make me aware. I almost don’t wanna know this about my government.
“We just had a lice outbreak here which we had to KEEP UNDER WRAPS. I wonder why??”
No need to wonder. Obviously, according to those who pull the strings and decide our future, all of this unpleasantness is outweighed by the value of getting YOU diversified. There are just too many of YOU! That problem has to be fixed.
It’s clear what issue has the priority here.
Thanks you all have left comments about my eariler comment, and most of all for understand our problems with these people. I have more to add. The Somali people here travel in packs they, can not drive and have had several accidents, involing local store fronts which they crash into. They refuse to pay for the damages most of the time, and almost never have car insuranse which is required in our state, by the laws. They act as tho they are more important they anyone else, and have been quoted by local law enforcement as being almost impossible to deal with. On a recent trip to a grocery store here my daughter and I saw a Somali woman drop 4 food stamp cards, now why on earth would she have so many. But when they checked out they tried to argue the amount of groceries they were buying with those food stamps. And the other ladies with her had multiple cards also. When most of the people in our county who are stuggling to pay rent or morgages and can’t get assistance why are they getting more than they deserve from or state?? This is the same for the illegal Mexicans that are over running us too. They use so many names to get this help, but why is it that they are getting it in the first place. I feel that only U.S citizens should be allowed to recieve any government assistance and so do most of us in this small rural county. We have to take a stand with our government and start putting the peopple we believe will protect the citizens of this counrty fist, otherwise we will be lost to all of those who are protecting their own interest and investments first.
I live in Canada and this story with Shelbyville is extremely similar to a town I used to live in (Brooks, AB). A tonne of Africans (mostly Sudanese) moved to Brooks to work for Lakeside Packers (funny enough, owned by Tyson Foods) and refused to integrate into the small town. Even with free ESL classes working around the scheduling of the meat packing plant most refused to even take the classes. They were extremely rude especially if you were a white woman who refused the advances from the men. Sometimes they could be very threatening. I hated it there and eventually left. As much as I hate that town at least it made me wake up to what’s going on. It was easy to say everyone is equal when most of my life I lived in towns with very large white populations. Once it’s in your face its not so easy……….
