Frank Reflections
By Frank Erickson
The October 8th City Pages had a front page article titled “HOMEGROWN-Minnesota Somalis battle terror recruiters for the souls of youth.”
Yes, wonderful story; very important to bring attention to this, it is appalling to see Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine recruiters now going after the souls of local Somali youth.
Good job, City Pages, your approach was right on target. For instance, if you would have focused only on the al-Shabab terror recruiters, your story would have been nothing more than sensationalism, a baseless and empty story, that viewed our Somali community as a hotbed of potential terrorists based only on skin color. An empty story based on the fact that just last month the New York Times reported that the Justice Department “prosecuted only five people from 2011 to 2013 for the crime of attempting to travel abroad to aid terrorists.” This “only five” is a national number, not a Minnesota number.
Very good City Pages, to show that all communities in Minnesota are preyed upon by terror recruiters, not just the Somali community. Your weekly paper did not take the typical scapegoat approach that the Star Tribune does, connecting “terror” to the Somali community to sell newspapers, since there is no evidence of any Minnesotan from our Somali community hurting or killing anyone abroad.
