relocating for school

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by audadvnc

Hey smart guy, I work with a half dozen Somalis at my hotel, they are perfect gentlemen. Unlike you. Your remark is outrageous and racist. Go away.

Somalis are not a monolithic group. Both sets of experience could be correct.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Yeah, I've spent most of my free time in Minneapolis in Cedar-Riverside. And my wife used to work in the area. It's an awesome neighborhood with great people.

It's a shame you didn't say something like that in your interview - because there are probably plenty of doctors involved in the admissions process that would have voted you down based purely on such a statement. Particularly with so many hundreds of qualified candidates, they don't feel the need to spend their time training malcontents.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

Somalis are not a monolithic group. Both sets of experience could be correct.

True. There are probably more sexual deviants at the U of M than among the Somali community though.

[RFHawks]

I didn't mean to offend or generalize to all Somalis. Like I said, I worked at Riverside ED and got to know lots of Somalis. My remark was only to describe the area. There are indeed lots of gangbangers in that area which happens to be predominately Somali. Maybe I should have left out the Somali descriptor. It seems to be hard to be completely PC.

I want to reiterate that I do not believe all Somalis are criminals. But nevertheless, one would be a fool to say that the Cedar/Riverside area is a safe place to raise a family, walk at night, etc.

[RFHawks]

Originally Posted by FamousBlueRaincoat

Yeah, I've spent most of my free time in Minneapolis in Cedar-Riverside. And my wife used to work in the area. It's an awesome neighborhood with great people.

It's a shame you didn't say something like that in your interview - because there are probably plenty of doctors involved in the admissions process that would have voted you down based purely on such a statement. Particularly with so many hundreds of qualified candidates, they don't feel the need to spend their time training malcontents.

My previous remark is being totally taken out of context. You might think that area is great and I have met many great people from the area, but would you move your small child there and not worry about it? It may be an area with great people but there is also gang activity and a lot of crime.

You people are generalizing way too much. I have met many awesome people from North-Northeast Minneapolis too but that doesn't mean it is safe for me and my family.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Originally Posted by RFHawks

My previous remark is being totally taken out of context. You might think that area is great and I have met many great people from the area, but would you move your small child there and not worry about it? It may be an area with great people but there is also gang activity and a lot of crime.

You people are generalizing way too much. I have met many awesome people from North-Northeast Minneapolis too but that doesn't mean it is safe for me and my family.

Personally - yes, I would. But I don't expect everyone to think the same way as I do about everything.

I don't know if you're from Minneapolis or have spent a lot of time there. But the Somalis deal with a lot of crap from residents, particularly for a group that is as close to being model immigrants as you can get (knowing english, being entrepreneurial, maintaining communities) - and there are people like me who have heard it all and are sick of it and react quickly to such comments. If anyone took you out of context, it's just because we've run into that context plenty of times. It has less to do with being PC and more to do with the fact that there are a lot of people who seriously don't like the Somalis. And it's not all that hard to avoid being mistaken as one of them.

Late Edit: There is actually significantly less reported crime in Cedar-Riverside than several other of the inner city neighborhoods. Its crimes reported per month are often closer to Linden Hills than to Marcy-Holmes, Como, Seward and other neighborhoods close to downtown and campus. So unless there's some sort of evidence of a massive amount of unreported crime as opposed to other neighborhoods (which could be possible, based on the amount of immigrants, but I've never seen any real evidence of), the allegation that it is "high crime" is rather misleading. There's crime on par with the rest of the city. It's better than some neighborhoods, and worse than some.

[RFHawks]

Yeah I can see that. I am not from minneapolis. I am from Stillwater where no one needs to lock their doors. Also, going to undergrad at the U we receive crime alerts that I think are super biased now that I think about it. ~95% of the offenders listed are 'east african' in the reports and are in that area (mostly muggings with life-threatening weapons) the sexual assaults occur in Marcy-Holmes area mostly.