Lewiston, Maine: Muslims Demand Mayor’s Resignation for Asking Them to Assimilate - See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2012/10/lewiston-maine-muslims-demand-mayors-resignation-for-asking-them-to-assimilate.html/#sthash.Sm1yeMBz.dpuf

By Pamela Geller

his is how far we have fallen: an American mayor asks immigrants to America to become Americans and adopt American values, as all immigrants did in the past, and they're demanding his resignation. Of course, we've seen it many times: Muslims do not adapt. Non-Muslims must adapt to them. And so it is here. But if our society and culture were healthy, the President and politicians all over the country would be rushing to the aid of Lewiston's mayor, instead of letting him twist in the wind.

Maine mayor: Somalis should leave culture at door Associated Press – Thu, Oct 4, 2012

 

 Associated

 The first Somali immigrants arrived in Lewiston in

 early 2001, moving 40 miles north of Portland because of plentiful,  cheap housing. By the time Raymond wrote his letter, nearly 1,000  Somalis had moved to the Lewiston area.

    The outrage over his  letter attracted international attention and spurred a 4,000-person  rally at Bates College, urging Mainers to embrace the influx of  immigrants. During the rally, a small number of white supremacists who  called for the expulsion of the Somalis gathered elsewhere in the city.

    With the current mayor, critics say Macdonald has made repeated inflammatory remarks about the Somali population.

 Press/Robert F. Bukaty – Community advocate Nimo Yonis leads a protest  chant against the mayor of Lewiston, Maine, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012.  Critics of the mayor delivered petitions asking for his …more

    LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Ten years after a Lewiston mayor set off a firestorm by saying the city's Somali population

    was growing too fast, a new mayor's remarks about the immigrant  community is sparking another wave of anger and calls for his resignation.

    Somali immigrants and their supporters in this former mill city in central Maine say Mayor Robert Macdonald should apologize and step down for what they call repeated anti-immigrant remarks, including telling a British Broadcasting Corp. interviewer that immigrants should "accept our culture and leave your culture at the door." A group of about 50 protesters rallied outside City Hall on Thursday before delivering 1,400 petitions to Macdonald's office, asking for his resignation.   The   mayor's remarks sounded like he was telling immigrants to abandon their religion, their language and their identities, said Nimo Yonis, 26, one   of an about 6,000 Somali refugees who live in Lewiston and the   neighboring city of Auburn. The mayor's words were painful, hurtful and  "represent hate," she said.

    "Basically, he's telling us to forget who we were," Yonis said. "Just leaving your culture at the door is leaving what you believe, what you stand for and who you are at the  door."

    He wrote in a local weekly newspaper that "submissive Somali women turn into obnoxious customers at the grocery store cash register." He also wrote that he was tired of news stories about Somalis being treated poorly; most complaints, he wrote, came from "boo-hoo white do-gooders and their carpetbagger friends."

He later told a reporter that immigrants shouldn't "insert your culture, which obviously isn't working, into ours, which does."

Mark Cayer, president of the Lewiston City Council, read a statement Thursday on behalf of the whole council saying the mayor's comments were his alone and not representative of the council or the city as a whole.

The letter written by Raymond in 2002 and Macdonald's words last month are "two totally different scenarios and two different moments in time," he said.

"But clearly there was division in the community at that

time, and there's still evidence of a division now," he said. "But

overall I think the community will grow from this."

his is how far we have fallen: an American mayor asks immigrants to America to become Americans and adopt American values, as all immigrants did in the past, and they're demanding his resignation. Of course, we've seen it many times: Muslims do not adapt. Non-Muslims must adapt to them. And so it is here. But if our society and culture were healthy, the President and politicians all over the country would be rushing to the aid of Lewiston's mayor, instead of letting him twist in the wind.
Maine mayor: Somalis should leave culture at door Associated Press – Thu, Oct 4, 2012
- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2012/10/lewiston-maine-muslims-demand-mayors-resignation-for-asking-them-to-assimilate.html/#sthash.ndaciWkG.dpuf

ByPamela Geller

ByPamela Geller