Maine Mayor: Somalis Should Leave Culture at Door

[Centrehalf]

There's a town in Maine named Lewiston. This town has taken in about 6,000 immigrants from Somalia recently. The Mayor of Lewiston recently stated that the immigrants should accept American society and leave their culture at the door which led to an entirely predictable crapstorm stirred on by an activist group.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/maine-mayor-somalis-leave-culture-door-17395647

The Maine People's Alliance says it has collected hundreds of signatures calling for Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald to step down over his comments to the British Broadcasting Corp.

Members of Lewiston's Somali community, other residents and local elected officials are gathering Thursday morning at City Hall to speak out against the remarks.

It's not unreasonable to ask immigrants to integrate into our society as quickly and fully as possible. What we're supposed to take from this story is that it is unreasonble to ask immigrants to Americanize themselves.

What I actually took from the story, the latest in a long line of stories such as this, is that I'm growing very tired of elected officials jumping on a relatively harmless comment and then coordinating with an outside group to pressure a duly-elected political opponent to resign. There have been 3 incidents like this in cities within 15 miles of my home alone over the last year, all of which led to costly recall elections after the resignation request was refused. Dirty tricks have always been part of this political game but it seems to me that garbage like this has become more prevalent over the last 10 years.

 

[dogtowner]

its a shame the melting pot got chucked, it worked well.

 

[Cruella]

its a shame the melting pot got chucked, it worked well.

Are they Muslims that don't believe in integration? They are taught to not take infidels as friends. This is a problem all over the world. Europeans, Canadians, Australians even those in Singapore complain that Muslims won't integrate.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

There's a town in Maine named Lewiston. This town has taken in about 6,000 immigrants from Somalia recently. The Mayor of Lewiston recently stated that the immigrants should accept American society and leave their culture at the door which led to an entirely predictable crapstorm stirred on by an activist group.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/maine-mayor-somalis-leave-culture-door-17395647





It's not unreasonable to ask immigrants to integrate into our society as quickly and fully as possible. What we're supposed to take from this story is that it is unreasonble to ask immigrants to Americanize themselves.

What I actually took from the story, the latest in a long line of stories such as this, is that I'm growing very tired of elected officials jumping on a relatively harmless comment and then coordinating with an outside group to pressure a duly-elected political opponent to resign. There have been 3 incidents like this in cities within 15 miles of my home alone over the last year, all of which led to costly recall elections after the resignation request was refused. Dirty tricks have always been part of this political game but it seems to me that garbage like this has become more prevalent over the last 10 years.

I am Irish, we did not leave ours at the door...did the Italians? Nope...suck it up. Not everyone is going to be a WASP and conform to some fake ideal. Just be glad they are not taking power the way we did. I don't care for that mayors Culture.

 

[Centrehalf]

Gross mistatement of American history aside, I'll take your silence on my main point as agreement that elections shouldn't be attempted to be reversed through these means.

 

[Centrehalf]

its a shame the melting pot got chucked, it worked well.

It appears the federal government did actually try to split this group up and get them to quickly integrate at first. The Feds brought over a bunch of Somali refugees back in '99. I've found differing accounts of this, some accounts say the Feds spread the refugees out over the whole country, some accounts say they spread them out but dumped most of them in Atlanta. What happened next is pretty funny, unless you live in Lewiston, Maine. The Somalis didn't like the neighborhoods they were relocated to so as a group they decided to find a new place to move to, and they chose Lewiston, and then moved there. Imagine being in Lewiston and then within a period of a few months you've got 6,000 Somalis in your town. This of course caused some "issues". It's been a political football ever since.

Lewiston is about 36,000 people. During the 2010 census about 50% of the city self-identified as being of either French or French-Canadian descent (well known WASPs, the French are), about 17% Irish descent, 14% English descent. Then throw in about 6,000 Somalis, talk about stranger in a strange land.