So the question remains – do you engage the Somalis as human beings, or do you just leave them in their coffee houses in Cedar-Riverside?

Mr. D on February 24, 2009 at 4:44 PM

If you’re having success with kids on the team, more power to you. So do your best while you have them. I’m with ya!

But you’re swimming against the tide when you go up against the mosque, the imams and the elders that see these kids as fodder for the jihad. (Over there now, over here, when?)

BTW, those poor saps who went back to Somalia weren’t 14 year old kids. The were young adults, making the worst decision of their short lives.

No intervention would have saved them, as their grieving families attest.

As for getting your head in the game, this will help:
Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror
By Mary R. Habeck
Published by Yale University Press, 2006
ISBN 0300113064, 9780300113068
243 pages

It’s pollyanna to think there aren’t a good number of Somali’s who wish us harm. Drop by the immigrant coffee houses over near the U or by Cedar-Riverside. The hate coming at you is palpable, and it doesn’t have anything to do with being “oppressed by the man”. To them an infidel & inferior, and it galls them that you even exist.
It doesn’t do anyone any good to pretend otherwise, ‘cuz all it does it limit your options and make you a more compliant target.
Jeez, Coach, get your head in the game…

Bruno Strozek on February 24, 2009 at 4:25 PM

Okay, so what do you suggest we do, then? Telling me to get my head in the game doesn’t provide a solution, now does it? And I sure the hell don’t think this is some “oppressed by the Man” thing either, because clearly that’s not the case. So we’re tied at one straw man apiece, it would appear.

So the question remains – do you engage the Somalis as human beings, or do you just leave them in their coffee houses in Cedar-Riverside?

My kids attend school in a fairly affluent suburban district and there are Somali kids in every classroom. They aren’t going away. Unless someone is willing to round up all the Somalis and send them someplace else, we’d better damned well learn how to live with them. And coaching basketball isn’t a bad place to start.

Mr. D on February 24, 2009 at 3:26 PM

D-Man:
It’s great you’re coaching hoops & trying to the Melting Pot route. I’m all for cultural assimilation. But that’s a two-way street, as the Irish (Swedes, Germans, Hmong etc) well know.
Trouble is, here in the inner city where I hang my hat, there ain’t no assimilation happening. It’s not racial, it’s religious.
My kid goes to a Mpls. school where diversity has really worked out fine: the Somali’s pretty much exclusively hang with Somali’s, distain white and Hispanic kids and positively have contempt for the black kids.
And nobody is suggesting “rounding ‘em up”, so let’s dispense with that straw man, shall we?
It’s pollyanna to think there aren’t a good number of Somali’s who wish us harm. Drop by the immigrant coffee houses over near the U or by Cedar-Riverside. The hate coming at you is palpable, and it doesn’t have anything to do with being “oppressed by the man”. To them an infidel & inferior, and it galls them that you even exist.
It doesn’t do anyone any good to pretend otherwise, ‘cuz all it does it limit your options and make you a more compliant target.
Jeez, Coach, get your head in the game…

Was this Somali one of the Minnesota cabbies who refused to transport dogs and people with duty free liquor? If so, see what appeasement gets you Minnesota!

Mr. Joe on February 24, 2009 at 12:17 PM

An fyi, as I recall those cabbies weren’t appeased. The Airport Commission stood strong and told them they had to go to the back of the line for their next fare if they refused to transport someone. On another note, my kids go to a large suburban high school and tell me there are certain bathrooms you avoid during the day because you’ll either get a dirty look from the Somali’s who are in them using the toilets and sinks to wash their feet, or the bathroom is unusable because it’s left in such a mess from those practices. There is definitely a sense of entitlement that’s quite disturbing and unique among this particular ethnic group.

He’s right. Look how well diversity is working out in Europe.

mankai on February 24, 2009 at 3:35 PM

You have a better idea? I’d love to hear it.

we’d better damned well learn how to live with them

He’s right. Look how well diversity is working out in Europe.

Just so we’re clear: I’m not OK with with “the kids” beheading my hoops-playing son, my wife, my friends, my neighbors, relatives or my dog.

BTW, does the D stand for dhimmi? :-)

Bruno Strozek on February 24, 2009 at 2:55 PM

I’m not okay with it, Bruno. I do suspect that we’ll have a better chance of avoiding that fate if we actually engage those Muslims in our midst. There are thousands of Somalis here in the Twin Cities. They are not a monolithic group, either, any more than my Irish forbears were when they came over on the coffin ships in the 1840s.

My kids attend school in a fairly affluent suburban district and there are Somali kids in every classroom. They aren’t going away. Unless someone is willing to round up all the Somalis and send them someplace else, we’d better damned well learn how to live with them. And coaching basketball isn’t a bad place to start.

And if the kid ends up beheading me some day, as Bonnie suggests, so be it.

Mr. D on February 24, 2009 at 2:15 PM

Well then, Mr. D, if your OK with that, then I’m OK with that.

Just so we’re clear: I’m not OK with with “the kids” beheading my hoops-playing son, my wife, my friends, my neighbors, relatives or my dog.

BTW, does the D stand for dhimmi? :-)

CrusaderPatriot on February 24, 2009 at 2:25 PM

In this case, Bush is partly to blame. He went into full Islamic-love after 9/11, hugging any Imam he could get his hands on. This is also the reason Iraq became a mess… he didn’t want any mosques damaged. I’m surprised we were able to bomb anything.

Shockingly, AQ and the other Iraqi militants used mosques for military purposes (hard to believe, I know, but it’s true).

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, said Monday that a Somali-American man who was one of several suicide bombers in a terrorist attack last October in Somalia

This is very disturbing. They could have upset the vibrant Somalian economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BucilebZsdw

Do not be surprised by the coming attacks! So I ask you, where are our militia training camps?

CrusaderPatriot.com

It was my responsibility to coach this kid and teach him how to play basketball. And if the kid ends up beheading me some day, as Bonnie suggests, so be it.

Mr. D on February 24, 2009 at 2:15 PM

I agree, you should be able to deal with Muslims normally.
It’s only when we see them behaving in ways that are anti-assimilation that we should act.
If I’m coaching a kid who starts proselytizing how girls shouldn’t be on the team, or how his game snacks cannot be eaten bcs they were made by an infidel, that’s the time you kick him the hell off of the team for his anti-secular behavior.
The muslims I’ve seen in Bismarck are girls & one played basketball on a friend’s team. The girl’s head & arms & legs were always covered, but not her face ever & she was treated like everyone else. Her parents didn’t seem to want preferential treatment.
But the minute people ask for preferential treatment is the day everyone in the community needs to rise up & denounce it & not cave into it.

They’ll play soccer with you, and seem very nice, until it is time to behead you.

bonnie_ on February 24, 2009 at 1:37 PM

Bingo. It’s not that Muslims necessary want to kill people, especially when they are children.
But when you live & breath the Koran, it eventually gets to most if not all of them at sometime if they remain faithful to the religion/political system that is Islam.
I have met Satanists who are very nice people, as well as others in different belief systems.
This unholy book called the Koran is why they hate & kill us infidels.
MN is a place for them to seek refuge. It is really ironic that they flee here to escape the horrors of their homeland, & then fight to bring the horrors to where they set up shop away from home.
I see a very few Muslims in Bismarck ND on occasion & also in Fargo. And I treat them as I would any other human being I meet.
But we should not allow these people to take advantage of our free society to bring their brand of political ideology to fruition here.
If you can’t assimilate to our culture, stay the hell home & change things to the way you want them in your own back yard!

SKYFOX on February 24, 2009 at 12:40 PM

It’s the religion. My wife is Polish (moved here 3 years ago to get her 2nd Master’s) and is disgusted that people here take everything for granted. She works on her English everyday and is now working at my university in the international student program. She sees on a daily basis how the different countries react to life in America. The students from eastern europe actively try to fit in with America while she has to field daily complaints and requests from the students from the middle east.

I guess you missed the point. Too bad.

2Brave2Bscared on February 24, 2009 at 1:47 PM

No, I got the point just fine. The kid wanted to play basketball, his family paid the money to play in the in-house league that I coach in and I and my fellow coaches did our best to make sure he had the best experience he could.

Is there some sort of elite that might get this kid to join a jihad some day? Sure, that’s possible. But this isn’t a matter of “a dessicated world where nothing is real except abstract slogans” – this is a real 13-year old kid who is living in Minnesota in 2009. It was my responsibility to coach this kid and teach him how to play basketball. And if the kid ends up beheading me some day, as Bonnie suggests, so be it.

If you attack the US, you wake the sleeping giant.
blatantblue on February 24, 2009 at 12:24 PM

Yeah, well the Big Guy is has really been cuttin’ the zzz’s lately.

Seems that 9/11 was just a snooze button event.

Not surprised about this happening in Minneapolis. Not.One.Bit.
Blue-eyed Infidel on February 24, 2009 at 12:34 PM

I’m with you Blue-eyes. I almost fell off my chair when I saw the Strib this morning. How this story leaked past the PC Police on Portland is amazing.

Mr. D on February 24, 2009 at 1:36 PM

I guess you missed the point. Too bad.

My son became friends with a Muslim student who was very western in dress and attitude. He was smart and kind. He had to go back home one weekend to take a look at the man his family was marrying his sister to. She didn’t want to, since she was sixteen and he was in his forties, but oh well.

They’ll play soccer with you, and seem very nice, until it is time to behead you.

2Brave2Bscared on February 24, 2009 at 1:16 PM

Guess this kid doesn’t have free will, nor does his family. Sorry I bothered, then — we’ll just have to airbrush the kid out of the team picture.

Of course, this doesn’t explain muslim radicals. I don’t think anything can.

SKYFOX on February 24, 2009 at 12:40 PM

It’s in the Koran