• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

A town in Kansas welcomed Somali refugees. 3 Trump supporters tried to kill them all.

Still reading through this now but...that's a shitty name for the article. I can see some people not wanting to share this on social media as a result.




*John Doe posts "The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim" by NewRepublic*

*John Doe deletes the post*


Oh , i know :p I read this article last week and wanted to post it but kept wondering how i'd name the thread. Then gave up for a while thinking "oh, someone else will make a thread" :p

I seem to recall Fox News whipping conservatives into a furor over Tyson supporting their Somali muslim employees with holidays etc.

Yeah, the (full) article mentions this and that not only them but Trump himself used shit like that during the campaign speeches.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
Yeah, the (full) article mentions this and that not only them but Trump himself used shit like that during the campaign speeches.
Yeah, near the end of his campaign he kicked the racism and xenophobia into overdrive. The article mentions that.

----
For as grim as this article gets (the section where they detail how the Somali community felt when they learned of the attacks was tear-inducing) it really does end on a positive note by pointing out just how thoroughly this plot backfired (even with the dagger twist of knowing how the county and surrounding areas voted). The Somali community feels more welcome in their town than ever, and trust between them and the police has finally been established. They're applying for their entire families to come over now. Etc.

There's at least a slither of hope.


Thanks so much for sharing this DerangedHermit.
 
The fact the town is called Liberal, and thus the police are 'Liberal police', must have made some alt-right memer sweat with gross joy.

It genuinely confused me for a few seconds. I had skipped over the town name and this sentence -

Allen, who had an earlier conviction for domestic battery, was barred from possessing guns or ammunition; Liberal police arrested him on the spot.

had me scratching my head.
 
I, too, can't get over the fact that the town is literally called Liberal.

I wonder how many terror attacks like this the FBI has to deal with on a regular basis. Domestic terrorists scare me 100x more than ISIS or what have you.
 

KimiNewt

Scored 3/100 on an Exam
I recommend you read the whole article, it's pretty good.

Incidentally, I found this sentence a bit funny:
While all of the meatpacking towns in the Golden Triangle had recruited Somalis, none was as diverse as Garden City, where Somalis now make up nearly the entire second shift at Tyson
"You keep using that word, 'diverse'.."
 
Just when you think you're not in Kansas anymore.

I used to work at a place where I could watch any game of the World Cup and know that I probably had co-workers supporting either teams.
 
I have 4 employees that are refugees and I worry about this all of the time. They're all wonderful people and I'm pretty close to one of them even though there's a barrier. Earlier in the year his brother was robbed and beaten to death so it was a smack of reality. I knew it happened before but I was admittedly "ignorant" to it per say until I came to this store and got to actually see it. I don't understand the hate.
 

Aytumious

Banned
From a certain point, adding more people of a certain minority stops being "diversity". I'm not American, so maybe for you guys it just means "less white people".

It doesn't state that all the people are from the same minority. It states that Garden City is diverse which appears to be correct based on almost any definition of the word.

"We have a significant Burmese population," Guymon says. "We have a Vietnamese population. We're seeing a lot of students come in from the northern African countries — Somalia, Ethiopia — and of course, the majority of them from Mexico or other countries in Central America."

According to the latest census, only about 40 percent of the residents here classify as "white, non-Hispanic."

"Garden City is the most diverse community here in Kansas," says Albert Kyaw, a translator for the district, who comes from Myanmar.

At least 27 different languages are spoken, some say up to 40, in a town of only 27,000. And these people are busy, as unemployment hovers around 3 percent.

From a different article about the success of the city.

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/19/51601...ula-faces-new-threats-under-trump-administrat
 

KimiNewt

Scored 3/100 on an Exam
It doesn't state that all the people are from the same minority. It states that Garden City is diverse which appears to be correct based on almost any definition of the word.



From a different article about the success of the city.

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/19/51601...ula-faces-new-threats-under-trump-administrat

Okay, then the sentence I quoted just had poor phrasing because I took it to mean "it is more diverse, as evidenced by the fact that the shift is almost all-Somalis". I saw the other lines and agree that it is diverse, just thought that particular line used it in a strange way.
 

UCBooties

Member
ek1uoLc.png

I wonder where they got that fucking idea...
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Kobach claimed that a Kansas City race for the state House had been “stolen” when J.J. Rizzo, a Democratic candidate, received “about 50 votes illegally cast by citizens of Somalia.” Although Rizzo’s own aunt and uncle later pleaded guilty to illegally voting in the election, there was no evidence of any wrongdoing by Somali refugees. But that didn’t prevent Kobach from repeating the claim in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “The Somalis, who didn’t speak English, were coached to vote for Rizzo by an interpreter at the polling place,” Kobach insisted. “Rizzo ended up winning by one vote.” The message from the state’s top voting official was clear: The newcomers from Somalia were being used to subvert American democracy.

Wow

wow
 
In a high-profile speech on August 4, Trump himself warned that terrorists from Somalia and other Muslim countries were scheming to gain entrance to the United States by posing as refugees, calling it “the great Trojan horse of all time.”

Bu But​ Trump supporters say Trump never EVER advocated violence. He didn't mean it when he said you have to take out a terrorist's family even if they didn't know.
 

E-Cat

Member
Nah they are clearly just 3 crazed individuals with no connection to any race, religion or organization. That's usually how this works
The "Crusaders" name is a pure coincidence. It could happen to anybody, including these patriots.
 
What the hell. Some people are just flat out insane. Why does a country such as the States allow someone to hoard that much guns and munitions. Plus the whole fear mongering of Muslims is really getting way out of hand.
 
So much to take in from this story.

The town is called Liberal. Liberal police, Liberal citizens, so good.

They called themselves the Crusaders.



Come on guys. You couldn't pretend it's a black dude and you smell marijuana?



Who knew the cure to economic anxiety was to murder all of your customers?



Presented without comment.



OK, I'll give them credit for not being completely close-minded. They adopted their own version of the Obama administration's method of evaluating casualties.



Yet another reminder of how dangerous that xenophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric is.



...

That's not even half of it. everyone should read the whole thing.

This is terrifying just how irresponsible right wing media has become.
 
JFC, the one guy's attorney was literally making the argument that he was not guilty because he got brainwashed by fake news.

I also have to wonder how much a metric ton of ammo costs.
 

FyreWulff

Member
The real story there isn't the terrorist fuckwads, but how Garden City opened itself up to the various refugees with open arms, and how the police cooperated with the community in discussing the aftermath of the foiled attacks. I would also wager there's a story in its resolution that, despite this progress and kindness, the surrounding town voted for Trump 2 to 1 anyway. Like, you just had a bunch of white dudes plot an attack that would've caught you in the crossfire, and you still voted for a dude who said the Somalis are the problem. The cognitive dissonance of conservatives astounds. Regardless, I feel Garden City is a model of cooperation and mutual benefit worth emulating for all minority communities; would love to see this kind of outreach in black communities.

also of course it's people outside the community that are against them being there. for an ideological group that's supposed against carpetbagging and "outsiders", they sure like to inflict harm on communities they're not even in.
 
This police department sounds entirely too reasonable.

They're smart enough to understand that their town depends on immigrant labor. And they don't want them to be scared to live and work there.

That said it's a damn shame that poor white people can't seem to figure out that immigrants/minorities aren't their enemy. Their enemy is the people who own the companies who do everything they can to weaken the power of labor. Racism is the reason why we don't have the quality of life that people in Europe have.

Divide along racial lines and lose, unite and win to force change for the better. Maybe one day...
 

MKIL65

Member
It's incredibly saddening how much discrimination Somalians face everyday. Not just in America, but also in Denmark and other places.

It's seriously awful.
 
Top Bottom