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One of the main things that drew me to the Republican Party was its staunch pro-life stance. It’s the same theme that attracted me to the Catholic faith. No matter one’s position in life, the party of Lincoln has stood strongly for the idea that rich or poor, born or unborn, young or elderly, non-disabled or special needs, every human life is a gift from God and has inherent worth and dignity. It’s a noble and Biblical aspiration that our country has never fully lived up to but one the GOP has been right to herald as worth pursuing in national policy and discourse.
So it bothered me both as a faithful Republican and a Christian to hear President Donald Trump universally denigrate Somali immigrants as “garbage.” What a toxic thing to say about an entire population of people, so many of whom work hard, start businesses, maintain strong family values, take on tough jobs many of us don’t want to do and add much to our community here. Minnesota has been welcoming and compassionate toward Somali immigrants, and most have been good stewards of that generosity and live as exemplary Americans.
That said, there’s no denying that the historic and massive fraud perpetrated here in Minnesota has been committed by a disproportionately large number of men and women of Somali descent and that there are issues in need of attention within that diaspora. The rate of poverty within Minnesota’s Somali community is too high and levels of English proficiency too low. It’s not racist or xenophobic to acknowledge these realities as we navigate urgent solutions to this untenable level of racketeering going on in our state.
The Somali American writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently wrote in the Free Press that Minnesota must do a better job of promoting fuller cultural assimilation for populations new to this nation in order to curb certain sectarian tendencies. “In societies ruled by multiculturalism, integration never comes,” she wrote. “Newcomers revert to the only social model they trust: the family, the clan, the inner circle. The state becomes a distant entity to be milked, repeatedly and without hesitation.” These are concepts worthy of discussion — respectfully and without prejudice — as we move on to hopefully better days for the state and Somali Minnesotans.
Jesus of Nazareth, whose birth we celebrate this season, was an outright radical at the time of his life for teaching that all human beings, regardless of station, enjoy the love of their creator and are born equal in his eyes. No one had preached that before. Christ taught us that we all are “God’s handiwork,” not trash. Trump should flip through his Bible before he makes comments again like he did last week about our Somali neighbors.
