Riverside towers on West Bank, home to many of Somali Minnesotans, and the planned setting of K’Naan’s HBO television series.
A planned television series set in Minnesota’s Somali community sparked protests at Saturday’s West Bank block party on September 10. Angry and tired of being characterized as jihadi recruits or recruiters, Minnesota Somali youth protested Somali Canadian rapper K’naan’s television plans when he came to perform. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say who threw what first – but police sprayed some of the crowd with chemical irritants, and arrested a couple of people, including a Muslim woman who is a leader of the Black Liberation Project.
The HBO television series started out as “The Recruiters,” focusing on the Somali community in Minnesota, with the promise that it “will draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment.” That sure plays into stereotypes about Somali youth in Minnesota. Now, the series has been renamed “Mogadishu, Minnesota,” and K’Naan claims that it will “present the true and beautiful side” of Somali immigrants. The protesters weren’t buying the new description. Continue reading →
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Filed under immigration, race, religion
Tagged as Araweelo, immigrants, immigration, Jim Crow North, K'Naan, Minnesota, Mogadishu MInnesota, refugees, Somali, Somali refugees, The Advocates for Human Rights, The Recruiters, Voices from Silence
Hennepin County was one of the jurisdictions named, blamed, and shamed in the first weekly report from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The weekly reports, required by Trump’s executive order, list the jurisdictions that don’t hold immigrants on ICE detainers, called “non-cooperative jurisdictions.” Hennepin County was targeted for refusing to hold two individuals, but Sheriff Rich Stanek hit back with photos showing the two leaving the jail in the custody of ICE agents.
Mary Turck
News Day 