You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

Sometimesineedhelp ago

I've certainly thought something similar while walking around my local mall. There is a large Muslim immigrant population in my city, but it is still a very small percentage of the whole overall, yet they are disproportionately represented at recreational shopping areas.

One particularly heartbreaking exchange happened right in front of me in line at Macy's that really made me see the situation more through the lens you're describing, and it was a Somali woman returning a child's outfit and having the credit returned to her store credit card, she had a few other things to buy and the cashier explained that she couldn't put anything else on the Macy's card until she made a payment. She then tried to make the payment with the Macy's card itself!!! She didn't strike me as a stupid person, she was just incredibly unfamiliar with how store credit worked... The Somali woman's friends then came over and got upset like she was being abused, so I (well-meaning busybody that I am) tried to help explain because honestly the cashier was excessively HORRIBLE at communicating, and she seemed to "get it" and appreciated my help, and tried to make a payment with another department store's credit card. Whether they don't allow you to use them outside of their stores or it too was maxed out I don't know, but she ended up not buying the clothes she'd intended to, and as I left the mall to go home, I saw the same woman and group of friends happily walking into another store to continue shopping. O_o

When I got home I actually started looking around to see if there was any type of consumer credit counseling in my area that was available to this community specifically because I at once realized there was probably a great need for one. I didn't find any, and with the plethora of other East African specific charities and programs in my town it really felt like it must have been an intentional omission [to my conspiratorial mind].

Please don't misunderstand me. I don't "hate" my Somali neighbors, though I'm very concerned and disturbed about a few simmering issues that I can see are about to boil over, but I think the enthusiastic and naive embrace of the worst of our sick consumer culture is proof of their efforts to integrate as well as their naivete of the intoxicating and predatory methods used to ensnare us all. Certainly some powerful people are benefiting from this situation, otherwise it wouldn't be happening the way it is...

"Somali's love the mall of America" https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DwR4HaTn9HUI&ved=2ahUKEwj2hqP_8cTcAhXmJDQIHcM_C9sQwqsBMAR6BAgNEA8&usg=AOvVaw35fkoF61PqzwT2JDtPRhoz