Slow news day?

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You would think so, after reading this article;

The U.S. Department of Justice notified the state’s congressional delegation that it was sending personnel to Sioux Falls “in response to increased racial tensions” in the city, but now federal officials say the April 6 visit won’t happen.

 

The reasons for the “deployment” remained nebulous Wednesday, and the incident had local officials wondering what “racial tensions” the department was referring to.

As you read more of the article, you will find that everyone is clueless of what it could be.  I think our city fairs pretty well when it comes to these kind of issues, but of course I hear differently from minorities. The most frequent complaint I hear is being pulled over for a DWI (driving while indian). Like I have said, I don’t hear any ‘major’ issues but one has to wonder how helpful our multi-cultural center is when it has been run by the same director (who created the job himself) for so long.

Qadir Aware, the director of the Multi-Cultural Center, said he hears complaints about racial issues, but he said those complaints are minor.

 

“We have some radical groups on either side who take a small thing and make a big deal about it,” he said. Some recent immigrants have complained about profiling because they’ve been pulled over when they weren’t speeding. Aware said they didn’t realize they had to renew their license plates.

Qadir represents a very small portion of minorities in our community (he is Iraqi) when most of the minorities that live here are either Hispanic, Native American or African. I wonder how well they are being represented by an Iraqi? I also have had some business conversations with Mr. Aware, and am not impressed by his attitude. I think the mult-cultural center would be better served if they had more sub-group directors that could address the problems of the particular minority groups. I also think that the directors should change every couple of years to keep perspective fresh. This is not happening. So everything is ‘Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy’ as Aware would like you to believe;

“I think we have a good community in Sioux Falls,” he added. “I’m proud of this community.”

This story has me curious though, and I know two people in particular that I am going to question about this.

Posted in: racism, Sioux Falls

3 Thoughts on “Slow news day?”

  1. l3wis on April 2, 2009 at 7:39 am said:

    I almost wonder if it has something to do with the new Islamic Center and the ‘supposed’ complaints about the parking spaces and parking on the street? Hmmmmmm?

  2. Ghost of Dude on April 2, 2009 at 7:46 am said:

    That’s probably part of it.
    But other than the native american population, I’m not sure what group, exactly, is being unfairly treated.
    I remember a few years back when a bunch of teenagers got into a fight at some basketball court and it ended up being some huge racial issue and people had those silly “eracism” bumper stickers for the next two years. The media was all over it, of course. To them, we’d finally arrived as a big city. We have our very own racial problems!

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