In 2011, I lost my job just as the Occupy Movement began. One of my friends was a union activist and he invited me to come to the occupation in downtown Minneapolis.  It was inspiring. I spent every day there, from early morning to night, but I would not sleep there. I was afraid of the police, the FBI—especially being Somali and Muslim.  I still communicate with some of the people I met during the occupation. The movement didn’t die. People got involved in other things. I have met some of the same people in Black Lives Matter, Minnesotans Against Islamophobia, and at the 4th Precinct Occupation after the police killing of Jamar Clark. 

— Mustafa Diriye

A Refugee Following Family to Minneapolis

I was in a refugee camp in Utanga in the Mombasa region of Kenya from 1991 to  1995. My sister was in San Jose, California, and sponsored us, so that is where we went first. My brother had a teaching degree. He came to Minnesota to see if he could get a job. The rest of us followed him. When he visited Minneapolis he was looking for three things: a Mosque, education opportunities, and coffee shops. He found them all in the Twin Cities.

My first impression of Minneapolis? Cold! I had a t-shirt. That’s it. I almost lost my hearing going outside without a coat or hat. That was in November 1996.

 

Gentrification in Downtown Minneapolis

The city has changed since I first came. I used to walk along 2nd Avenue, where the Guthrie Theater is now. It was mostly populated by youth of color who hung out and lived there. Now it is it like the suburbs moved to the city. Fancy condos and white people fill the area. 

I worked for American Express Corporation in downtown Minneapolis for fourteen years.  It was such a strange atmosphere at lunch time. The downtown workers were more than 90 percent white. It was very different from other U.S. cities I have visited: Chicago, Philadelphia, Nashville. Even San Jose had more Asians and Latinos working downtown. It is strange because the neighborhoods surrounding downtown are mostly people of color, but they don’t have the jobs. It’s like downtown Minneapolis is a private district, and the owners only hire white.

 

Occupy: Introduction to Activism in Minneapolis

In 2011, I lost my job. I was newly unemployed just as the Occupy Movement began. One of my friends was a union activist and he invited me to come down. It was really inspiring. I spent everyday there, from early morning to night, but I would not sleep there.  I thought about Tiananmen Square. I was afraid of the police, the FBI — especially being Muslim.  I still communicate with some of the people I met during the Occupation. The movement didn’t die. People just got involved in other things. I have met some of the same people in Black Lives Matter, Minnesotans Against Islamophobia, and at the 4th Precinct Occupation last fall.

 

Somali Families and Minneapolis Public Schools

Today I work with an education reform organization that focuses on getting parents involved, empowering them to help their kids get the best education. My colleagues are Puerto Rican, Black, and Hmong and we get along really well. The biggest obstacles to Somali parent involvement in the schools are a) working different shifts and several jobs; b) an attitude that if my kid is doing OK I don’t care what is happening to anyone else; c) a severe breakdown in trust. The parents don’t trust me, or their kid’s  teachers, or other parents. Part of that is the tribal system we did not leave at home. However the mistrust has grown, due to the  role of the FBI recruiting informants. No one trusts anyone.  Not even our religious leaders — the only ones who can really help us deal with the trauma and the internal divisions. The FBI is sowing distrust in the community. Now, when there is suffering within our families, people do not reach out for help. They just endure or get divorced. We have more and more single mothers.

 

FBI Entrapment of Somali Youth

I interviewed Mustafa on June 3, 2016, the day the news broke that the three young Minneapolis men, Somali Americans, were found guilty by an all white Minneapolis jury, of conspiring to join ISIS. The men were entrapped by an FBI informant and never acted on their plans.

Those young men accused and found guilty of being ISIS sympathizers were in their early 20s. They have experienced a lot of discrimination. The FBI informant was just 19 years old when he was paid $119,000 to set them up, get them high on marijuana, and egg them on.  Now they face life sentences. When Donald Trump talks about beating people up, when he says he could kill someone and not get arrested, well, he is right! It is the double standard that infuriates me. 

 

Survivor of Atrocities

The Somalis who came to Minnesota, spent years in refugee camps. Many never had a chance to finish high school. We suffer from the trauma of war. I was nine years old when a gun was put to my head. My brother was killed in Mogadishu 1990. I saw more than 100 dead people lying in a field. These experiences stay with you.

 

Somali Community Goals

When we came everyone had four goals: get an education, own our own businesses, practice our faith, and go back home. Now, 30 years later, very few plan on going back home. There is little for us back home. We are staying here, and putting down roots. We are  getting college degrees —60% of Somali women and 30% of Somali men in Minnesota have college degrees. We have our own malls and whole neighborhoods dominated by Somalis. We are getting into politics.  

 

 

Housing, Policing

How do we create healthy communities? We need homes people can afford. We need police to come from the communities they serve. We now have three Somali police who came from the neighborhood and crime has gone down to a trickle. I think instead of a two-year certificate, police should go to college for four years. One of those years should be spent engaging in community service, not as cops but as social service agents.

 

Bernie Sanders and Muslim Support

I think Bernie Sanders is putting forth the kind of agenda that Minneapolis needs. He has nearly unanimous Muslim support. African American Muslims, Asian Muslims, African Muslims Arab Muslims. We all support the white Jewish guy who is saying something different.  The other candidates are offering more of the same oppression for us. Islamophobia. If the pattern continues we will be like the Jews in Germany in 1940 .

 

Islamophobia in Minneapolis

Islamophobia is a daily trauma in my community. It is so normal that many stories are not even told anymore. We have the triple whammy. We are Black. We are Immigrant. We are Muslim. The women get picked on more. People drive by and yell, “Go back to where you came from.” Just today I heard from a mother whose daughter is a crossing guard. A kid yelled “She is ISIS, run! “and all the kids ran away from her. The mom put the story on Facebook and her page filled up with  threats. These are everyday experiences for us.

Talking like this makes me hopeful. It is this kind of exchange of experiences that we need. But I am always hopeful. If people survived Hitler, humanity will survive.

 

After the Murder of George Floyd and the Minneapolis Uprising