First of all, this does revolve around immigration. I'm basically just going through articles and giving my opinion. Maybe some will like my style; I dunno. The post below will state the instructions. After that, the original article I'm commenting on is in black text and my comments are in red text. I've done 86 of these......this is my 86th one. I critique Kevin D. Williams article over Somali Refugees.
Twitter - @KEVINNR
Consider the thousand-plus Somali refugees in Amarillo, Texas.
The jokes came pretty quick, and I was quick to join in: A gunman at a Walmart in Amarillo? Heāll be lucky if he lives long enough for the police to show up.
As it turns out, he lived that long, but not much longer: A SWAT officer killed him before he could injure anybody.
People on Twitter joked: At least we can be pretty sure itās not a jihadist. How many angry Muslims could there be in Amarillo?
These people donāt know Amarillo, which has one of the largest populations of refugees relative to its population of any city in the country, the largest by some estimates. They are mainly Somali, Burmese, and Iraqi, and many are employed in nearby slaughterhouses and meat-packing facilities. The feedlots there are something to see: cattle all the way to the horizon. If youāve heard of āfactory farming,ā this is the Pontiac of beef.
The Walmart gunman was indeed a Somali [EDITOR'S NOTE: See correction at end], by the name of Mohammad Moghaddam. A note in what was presumed to be Arabic (the Amarillo police department is not jam-packed with Semitic linguists) was, according to overheard police-scanner traffic, left in the shooterās car. It is Ramadan, and jihad is in the air after Orlando. But he had worked at the Walmart, and his target seems to have been his former boss. The police are saying it is just another episode of workplace violence.
But thatās the thing about having a diverse society: A simple episode of workplace violence isnāt necessarily just that. Amarilloās churches and institutions have done a great deal for the refugees, but many locals believe that the city already has done more than its fair share, that enough is enough. Not everyone in this Panhandle city has been entirely happy to host those thousand-plus Somali refugees, who have not undergone what you would call rapid assimilation. The Somalis may not be entirely happy to have been shipped to a cow town on the far side of the world, either, though one supposes that what greeted them in Amarillo is a bit nicer than what the local warlords might have had in mind for them back home.
Would Muhammad Moghaddam have been treated differently by his boss if heād been an Anglo or a Mexican American? (Potter County is about 38 percent Hispanic; as is true of much of West Texas and the Texas Panhandle, the Anglo and Latino communities, having had more than a century to get used to one another and very little to fight over in the way of status or economic resources, are much better integrated than they are in, say, Southern California.) Would he have perceived his treatment differently? Would he have cracked up in the way he apparently did if he were not a refugee in an alien land? It is impossible to say. I can say that the local reception to a gunman named Muhammad has been rather different from what it would have been to one named Ray.
The scholarly literature in economics and the other social sciences suggest that a certain level of diversity is healthy for a society (if you have lots of different ideas and approaches to community problems, youāre more likely to have a good one) but that diversity beyond certain levels imposes real social costs. People are less trusting and less cooperative when dealing with people who are unlike them, and it may very well be the case that this isnāt a learned attitude but an evolved response to real threats in the ancestral environment.
This isnāt the areaās first time around with refugee questions. In the 1970s, a great many Vietnamese families settled there, many of them attached to Texas Tech University or to local businesses such as the now-defunct Texas Instruments factory. One of my best friends growing up was one of these immigrants. He didnāt speak a word of English when he showed up in the second grade; by sixth grade, youād have thought he was a refugee from San Diego. They assimilated quickly in West Texas, in part because there wasnāt much choice. Where their numbers were larger, such as on the Gulf coast near Houston, they formed more-enduring unassimilated enclaves.
I was in a tenth-grade American-history class the first time I heard one of my teachers, a well-meaning left-winger of the Ann Richards variety for whom the entirety of American history was slavery, Jim Crow, and the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, talk about the āsalad.ā You know the salad: America shouldnāt aspire to be a melting pot, this line of thinking goes, but a kind of tossed salad, in which everything is mixed up but each bit retains its distinctiveness. A great deal of our public policy, from so-called multicultural education (which is in fact the opposite of an education in culture) to refugee protocols that concentrate foreign populations instead of dispersing them, assumes the salad. Weāve seen how well thatās worked for the Swedes, the Germans, the French, etc., but weāre sure that our salad will be a gourmet masterpiece compared to the French frisĆ©e or the German . . . whatever passes for a salad in Germany.
It isnāt.
I think of my Vietnamese friend, lost and no doubt feeling very, very alone in the second grade. It must have been hard on him, and still harder on his parents, who were terrific people but who never really were quite at home in their adopted country. But their son is as assimilated as he can be, and if their grandchildren grow up to be presidents or CEOs, no one will be surprised. That exercise in assimilation was hard, fast, unsympathetic ā and effective.
The melting pot isnāt comfortable ā it is, metaphorically, a kind of trial by fire ā but it works.
Thereās a lot standing between those Somali refugees in Amarillo and assimilation, and Islam is not the least of it. We did a pretty good job of assimilating those Vietnamese, and we arenāt doing such a bang-up job so far with the Somalis ā not in Texas, and not in places such as Minneapolis.
Thereās a lesson in that for immigration reformers, if they have eyes to see.
ā Kevin D. Williamson is the roving correspondent for National Review.
UPDATE: News reports originally identified Mohammad Moghaddam as a Somali immigrant; subsequent reports identify him as an immigrant from Iran.
My Response:
1st Impression: Disagreeing with Kevin - I was really impressed with how this article flowed and was structured. He addressed the Amarillo shooting, told the unseemingly related, for this specific context, story about his young Vietnamese friend migrating here, and lastly, he addressed the theme of assimilation.
If Iām not mistaken, the only difference between Kevinās point of view regarding the assimilation between the Vietnamese migrating over in the ā70s and the Somali refugees in the present is the prevalence of the Muslim religion in Somalia.
I see where heās coming from and I think what he believes is just a more extreme version of what I believe with Muslim immigration. I just came up with this while reviewing this article, but there probably should only be an intake of skilled Somali refugees. Not refugees, as I stated earlier, who will live off of our government. America should be the Harvard of countries.
Let me know what you think. Thanks!
Critique by Jacob Taylor aka LTSold on February 20, 2018.
86th Critique
Warning: Contains Offensive & Satirical Content
Primary political issue:
Muslim immigrants
Primary pundit being critiqued:
Kevin D. Williamson - Correspondent for National Review
Original article titled,
Immigration & Assimilation -- Somali Refugees in Texas, Outside the Melting Pot | National Review
Below is the replicated format and text of the original article.
My commentary is in red text throughout.
by KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON June 15, 2016 1:12 PMWarning: Contains Offensive & Satirical Content
Primary political issue:
Muslim immigrants
Primary pundit being critiqued:
Kevin D. Williamson - Correspondent for National Review
Original article titled,
Immigration & Assimilation -- Somali Refugees in Texas, Outside the Melting Pot | National Review
Below is the replicated format and text of the original article.
My commentary is in red text throughout.
Twitter - @KEVINNR
(Boguslaw Mazur/Dreamstime)
Consider the thousand-plus Somali refugees in Amarillo, Texas.
Not quite the first city I would pick for the poster child in the fight against Somali refugees if I confidently thought it was a problem.
The jokes came pretty quick, and I was quick to join in: A gunman at a Walmart in Amarillo? Heāll be lucky if he lives long enough for the police to show up.
This is what was going through my head after reading this paragraph; āhaha yeah, I can relate to the humor being from east Tennessee. Weāre polite, but man weāre armed and ready for trouble if trouble presents itself.ā
As it turns out, he lived that long, but not much longer: A SWAT officer killed him before he could injure anybody.
This is what was going through my head after reading this paragraph; āThat was quite the blunt transition and tonal shift. Jesus.ā
People on Twitter joked: At least we can be pretty sure itās not a jihadist. How many angry Muslims could there be in Amarillo?
Haha, yeah I know. Thereās no way this article will point out that indeed it was a jihadist. What would be even crazier is if this was actually home to one of the largest populations of refugees relative to its population of any city in the country, but thereās no way.
What really puts the nail in this coffin is the fact that Kevin joked about Amarillo being an unlikely victim of Muslim terrorism in the paragraph before last. Pssssh, the terrorist was probably some screwed up white kid who finally snapped after playing GTA in his grandmotherās basement and immersing himself in toxic forums 24/7.
These people donāt know Amarillo, which has one of the largest populations of refugees relative to its population of any city in the country, the largest by some estimates. They are mainly Somali, Burmese, and Iraqi, and many are employed in nearby slaughterhouses and meat-packing facilities. The feedlots there are something to see: cattle all the way to the horizon. If youāve heard of āfactory farming,ā this is the Pontiac of beef.
Youāve got to make them feel like theyāre murdering something living for Allah. Iām kidding.
āPontiac of [insert consumer product]ā I like that.
āPontiac of [insert consumer product]ā I like that.
The Walmart gunman was indeed a Somali [EDITOR'S NOTE: See correction at end], by the name of Mohammad Moghaddam. A note in what was presumed to be Arabic (the Amarillo police department is not jam-packed with Semitic linguists) was, according to overheard police-scanner traffic, left in the shooterās car. It is Ramadan, and jihad is in the air after Orlando. But he had worked at the Walmart, and his target seems to have been his former boss. The police are saying it is just another episode of workplace violence.
I try not to use top shelf, aggressive words in instances where they shouldnāt be used to emphasize any point I make; like for example, the left overusing the word ārapeā and the right overusing words, such as āanarchy, chaos, etc,ā so the assumption still being made regarding this manās motivations having anything to do with his background seems discriminatory just looking at the facts presented so far.
Hereās the correction for the EDITORās NOTE he mentioned at the top of the paragraph, so readers do not have to skip to the end:
āUPDATE: News reports originally identified Mohammad Moghaddam as a Somali immigrant; subsequent reports identify him as an immigrant from Iran.ā
Hereās the correction for the EDITORās NOTE he mentioned at the top of the paragraph, so readers do not have to skip to the end:
āUPDATE: News reports originally identified Mohammad Moghaddam as a Somali immigrant; subsequent reports identify him as an immigrant from Iran.ā
But thatās the thing about having a diverse society: A simple episode of workplace violence isnāt necessarily just that. Amarilloās churches and institutions have done a great deal for the refugees, but many locals believe that the city already has done more than its fair share, that enough is enough. Not everyone in this Panhandle city has been entirely happy to host those thousand-plus Somali refugees, who have not undergone what you would call rapid assimilation. The Somalis may not be entirely happy to have been shipped to a cow town on the far side of the world, either, though one supposes that what greeted them in Amarillo is a bit nicer than what the local warlords might have had in mind for them back home.
āA simple episode of workplace violence isnāt necessarily just that.ā
No of course itās not. I agree with that statement alone stripping it from the manipulative purpose itās used for. What his statement is doing is addressing a broad and universally accepted fact while simultaneously implying the violent acts were influenced by the culture of the perpetrator.
No of course itās not. I agree with that statement alone stripping it from the manipulative purpose itās used for. What his statement is doing is addressing a broad and universally accepted fact while simultaneously implying the violent acts were influenced by the culture of the perpetrator.
This is pretty disgusting due to the fact that the police investigated it and concluded the action stemmed from issues contained in the Walmart. You have to keep in mind that the dude worked at Walmart. That is enough evidence to understand why he snapped right there.
Would Muhammad Moghaddam have been treated differently by his boss if heād been an Anglo or a Mexican American? (Potter County is about 38 percent Hispanic; as is true of much of West Texas and the Texas Panhandle, the Anglo and Latino communities, having had more than a century to get used to one another and very little to fight over in the way of status or economic resources, are much better integrated than they are in, say, Southern California.) Would he have perceived his treatment differently? Would he have cracked up in the way he apparently did if he were not a refugee in an alien land? It is impossible to say. I can say that the local reception to a gunman named Muhammad has been rather different from what it would have been to one named Ray.
He wouldāve reacted the same if he was still a shitty person.
The scholarly literature in economics and the other social sciences suggest that a certain level of diversity is healthy for a society (if you have lots of different ideas and approaches to community problems, youāre more likely to have a good one) but that diversity beyond certain levels imposes real social costs. People are less trusting and less cooperative when dealing with people who are unlike them, and it may very well be the case that this isnāt a learned attitude but an evolved response to real threats in the ancestral environment.
This is me using the same tactic Cathy Newman used while debating Jordan Peterson: āSo what youāre saying is white people hate other races.ā If you donāt understand the reference, look it up.
This isnāt the areaās first time around with refugee questions. In the 1970s, a great many Vietnamese families settled there, many of them attached to Texas Tech University or to local businesses such as the now-defunct Texas Instruments factory. One of my best friends growing up was one of these immigrants. He didnāt speak a word of English when he showed up in the second grade; by sixth grade, youād have thought he was a refugee from San Diego. They assimilated quickly in West Texas, in part because there wasnāt much choice. Where their numbers were larger, such as on the Gulf coast near Houston, they formed more-enduring unassimilated enclaves.
Given the fact that he couldāve been mistaken as being from San Diego after 4 years of American citizenship, did he also start smelling his own farts? Oh shit wait, thatās San Francisco.
I was in a tenth-grade American-history class the first time I heard one of my teachers, a well-meaning left-winger of the Ann Richards variety for whom the entirety of American history was slavery, Jim Crow, and the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, talk about the āsalad.ā You know the salad: America shouldnāt aspire to be a melting pot, this line of thinking goes, but a kind of tossed salad, in which everything is mixed up but each bit retains its distinctiveness. A great deal of our public policy, from so-called multicultural education (which is in fact the opposite of an education in culture) to refugee protocols that concentrate foreign populations instead of dispersing them, assumes the salad. Weāve seen how well thatās worked for the Swedes, the Germans, the French, etc., but weāre sure that our salad will be a gourmet masterpiece compared to the French frisĆ©e or the German . . . whatever passes for a salad in Germany.
ā(which is in fact the opposite of an education in culture)ā
Finally someone said it.
Finally someone said it.
To put it simply, I believe we should welcome other cultures, but pick families individually who can bring needed or beneficial work to America. I donāt know if Kevin, the author, would agree with me on that. Itās not projecting hate; itās common sense that if people flee here with nothing valuable to offer, it slowly pulls our country down.
It isnāt.
I think of my Vietnamese friend, lost and no doubt feeling very, very alone in the second grade. It must have been hard on him, and still harder on his parents, who were terrific people but who never really were quite at home in their adopted country. But their son is as assimilated as he can be, and if their grandchildren grow up to be presidents or CEOs, no one will be surprised. That exercise in assimilation was hard, fast, unsympathetic ā and effective.
I assume what he means by immigrants assimilating, is by following the ethics and values of Americaās founding fathers.
The melting pot isnāt comfortable ā it is, metaphorically, a kind of trial by fire ā but it works.
At least weāre passed the point when it literally was.
Thereās a lot standing between those Somali refugees in Amarillo and assimilation, and Islam is not the least of it. We did a pretty good job of assimilating those Vietnamese, and we arenāt doing such a bang-up job so far with the Somalis ā not in Texas, and not in places such as Minneapolis.
Theyāre assimilating better than American citizens as a whole.
Thereās a lesson in that for immigration reformers, if they have eyes to see.
I see through your facade.
ā Kevin D. Williamson is the roving correspondent for National Review.
UPDATE: News reports originally identified Mohammad Moghaddam as a Somali immigrant; subsequent reports identify him as an immigrant from Iran.
I donāt understand why he didnāt just edit it and address his mistake in the same spot haha.
My Response:
1st Impression: Disagreeing with Kevin - I was really impressed with how this article flowed and was structured. He addressed the Amarillo shooting, told the unseemingly related, for this specific context, story about his young Vietnamese friend migrating here, and lastly, he addressed the theme of assimilation.
If Iām not mistaken, the only difference between Kevinās point of view regarding the assimilation between the Vietnamese migrating over in the ā70s and the Somali refugees in the present is the prevalence of the Muslim religion in Somalia.
I see where heās coming from and I think what he believes is just a more extreme version of what I believe with Muslim immigration. I just came up with this while reviewing this article, but there probably should only be an intake of skilled Somali refugees. Not refugees, as I stated earlier, who will live off of our government. America should be the Harvard of countries.
Let me know what you think. Thanks!
Critique by Jacob Taylor aka LTSold on February 20, 2018.
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