The enemy is here and is letting us know it

(See the comment below from a reader in Dearborn, Michigan.)

Will stories like this, which came out of Minneapolis, finally convert conservatives (how about the Powerline guys, who live there?) to separationism? It originally appeared in the March 18 Newsday:

Muslim cashiers won’t ring up pork products

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—Beryl Dsouza was late and in no mood for delays when she stopped at a Target store after work two weeks ago for milk, bread and bacon.

So Dsouza was taken aback when the cashier—who had on the traditional headscarf worn by many Muslim women—refused to swipe the bacon through the checkout scanner.

“She made me scan the bacon. Then she opened the bag and made me put it in the bag,” said Dsouza, 53. “It made me wonder why this person took a job as a cashier.”

In the latest example of religious beliefs creating tension in the workplace, some Muslims in the Twin Cities are adhering to a strict interpretation of the Koran that prohibits the handling of pork products.

Instead of swiping the items themselves, they are asking non-Muslim employees or shoppers to do it for them.

Minneapolis has become a hotbed for such conflicts because of its burgeoning population of Somali immigrants, many of whom are orthodox Muslims.

Shah Khan, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Minnesota, said the Somali Muslim community is divided between those who believe it is wrong to eat pork and those who believe the prohibition extends to selling, touching or handling the meat.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers must accommodate a person’s religious practice if it doesn’t impose a hardship. [Hey, it’s no hardship, we can adjust!]

A customer’s personal preference is usually not a factor in deciding whether a practice is protected, noted Khadija Athma of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington.

A cashier should call over another cashier to scan a product and the shopper shouldn’t be inconvenienced, she said. “If the employee is rude and gasps at the sight of pork, then it’s a different situation,” she said.

But after the situation was publicized on the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune last week, Target received angry mail and boycott threats. Target managers asked Muslim cashiers who refuse to handle pork to wear gloves or transfer to other areas of the stores.

This time the Muslims, lacking the power to impose their will, were willing to make adjustments. But they’re testing us, testing us. They believe in themselves, and they know that we don’t believe in ourselves, and they know that the point will come when we start adjusting to them—also known as living under sharia. What would have been the proof that we believed in ourselves? That we would not have admitted them into our country in the first place. Or or having committed that disastrous folly, that we would realize our folly, stop letting any more of them in, and begin removing them. There is no middle ground. Either we assert our will over them, which means making them leave our country, or they will assert their will over us, which means taking over our country.

- end of initial entry -

RG writes:

With respect to “The enemy is here and is letting us know it,” I live in Dearborn, Michigan, the number one spot of Muslims in the USA. Years ago, even just 15 or so years ago, Muslim immigrants were much more Westernized. Today, they are much more fundamentalist, observant, confident and even cocky.

I have seen this phenomenon from the ground-up. It’s a simple calculus. The more Muslims settle in an area, the greater the chance you will see parts of Sharia law creeping into your community’s laws, ordinances and in your school system.

I wish it weren’t so but I think it’s already too late. The combination of Muslim immigration, an “erased” southern border which invites half of Mexico and Central America here, and more and more of the special visas such as the H-1B (for technical professionals, mainly India) have all taken their toll on the USA. Americans are losing not only their jobs and even whole career fields but also their once proud, independent nation.

LA replies:

You should not give up hope because things can move in only one of two directions: they can keep getting worse, or they can get better, or at least less bad. For things to keep getting worse would require that the majority population continues to do literally nothing. If the majority does even something, things will starting getting less bad. For you to preclude the possibility of the majority fighting back even a little is to embrace defeat and non-existence.

LA continues:

From the time in the early ’80s when I first awoke to what immigration was doing to America, and was traumatized from my head to my toes, I always had this thought: that what was worse than losing was to lose without a fight. Now, whether we fight—whether we do something to save ourselves—is completely up to us, it’s not up to the Mexicans or the Muslims or anyone other than ourselves. And if we began to resist, if a significant number of the majority began to say, “we don’t like what is happening, this was a terrible mistake, we want to stop this,” that by itself would transform everything for the better. Would it assure survival of our country and culture? No, but we’d be alive, and we would have a chance. Again, whether we do that is entirely up to us, not up to any external controlling factors. Therefore to say that it’s over is to preclude even the possibility of the majority standing up for itself.

RG replies:

Thanks for the reply…. I know you’re right but it’s very depressing at times. But as you probably know as well as I, nothing will change until the level of immigration is at least reduced.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 28, 2007 06:36 PM | Send