St. Cloud, Somalia

How to stoke the Frontlash in Mogadishu-on-the-Prairie.

I vaguely recall reading in Harper’s Magazine back in the 1980s that the lowest crime rate in America was in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The town back then was all-white, mostly North Central European, all the children were above average in conduct, and it was too cold for street corner muggers.

Since then, however, St. Cloud has been turning into Mogadishu-on-the-Prairie, with the black population (almost all Somali) increasing by an order of magnitude between the 2000 and 2020 Censuses.

By 2016, life in boring, white-bread St. Cloud was becoming more vibrant. From CNN:

ISIS wing claims responsibility for Minnesota mall attack

By Chandrika Narayan and Steve Visser, CNN

Updated 9:11 PM EDT, Sun September 18, 2016

The man who stabbed nine people at a Minnesota mall Saturday before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer was a “soldier of the Islamic state,” according to an ISIS-linked news agency. …

Fortunately, the Frontlash quickly surged into traditional action:

Community leaders fear anti-Muslim backlash, call for unity

… “We are also concerned about the potential backlash,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter in Minnesota. “We understand in St. Cloud there is more anti-Muslim organizing and we hope they do not use this incident to divide … our community.” …

St. Cloud is home to one of Minnesota’s larger immigrant Muslim communities and tensions with some members in the larger community have spiked at times, the StarTribune reported. …

The state was at the center of a federal investigation into the recruitment of fighters for ISIS. Nine Somali-Minnesotans were convicted at trial or pleaded guilty in a plot to travel to Syria to join ISIS. In years back, several dozen male residents left to join Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group working to turn Somalia into an Islamist state.

A few years later, the news section of the New York Times stoked the Frontlash further against white St. Cloud natives:

‘These People Aren’t Coming From Norway’: Refugees in a Minnesota City Face a Backlash

As more Somali refugees arrive in St. Cloud, white anti-immigration activists have pressed an increasingly explicit anti-Muslim agenda.

By Astead W. Herndon

June 20, 2019

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — John Palmer, a former university professor, has always had a cause. For decades he urged Minnesota officials to face the dangers of drunken driving and embrace seatbelts. Now he has a new goal: curbing the resettlement of Somali refugees in St. Cloud, after a few thousand moved into this small city where Mr. Palmer has lived for decades.

Every weekday, he sits in the same spot at Culver’s restaurant — the corner booth near the Kwik Trip — and begins his daily intake of news from xenophobic and conspiratorial sites, such as JihadWatch.org, and articles with titles like “Lifting the Veil on the ‘Islamophobia’ Hoax.”

You can tell the retired professor is a Bad Guy because he’s not standing next to a window looking pensive. Instead, he is sitting in front of a solid wall staring into the lens.

On Thursdays, Mr. Palmer hosts a group called Concerned Community Citizens, or C-Cubed, which he formed to pressure local officials over the Muslim refugees. Mr. Palmer said at a recent meeting he viewed them as innately less intelligent than the “typical” American citizen, as well as a threat.

“The very word ‘Islamophobia’ is a false narrative,” Mr. Palmer, 70, said. “A phobia is an irrational fear.” Raising his voice, he added, “An irrational fear! There are many reasons we are not being irrational.”

Don’t expect the New York Times to list them, however.

In this predominantly white region of central Minnesota, the influx of Somalis, most of whom are Muslim, has spurred the sort of demographic and cultural shifts that President Trump and right-wing conservatives have stoked fears about for years. The resettlement has divided many politically active residents of St. Cloud, with some saying they welcome the migrants.

But for others, the changes have fueled talk about “white replacement,” a racist conspiracy theory tied to the declining birthrates of white Americans that has spread in far-right circles and online chat rooms and is now surfacing in some communities.

Such evil conspiracy theorists must be replaced.

… Minnesota’s biggest city, Minneapolis, has long struggled to incorporate a growing immigrant population into the city’s fabric, but the recent ascension of some former refugees into political power was taken as a sign of progress by many liberals. In central Minnesota, which is more conservative than the state’s urban centers, advocates for refugees fear that the resettlements could be met with more resistance.

Dave Kleis, the mayor of St. Cloud and a longtime Republican who now identifies as an independent, has voiced support for the resettlement program, but he has also drawn criticism for not forcefully denouncing groups like C-Cubed, which he refused to discuss in an interview.

You can tell the refugee is …

Paywall here.