Refugees, terror, and our new normal: Five things I need to ask my fellow Americans

My phone buzzed as I sat listening to a Mariachi group at my mother in law’s birthday party. I looked down to a text from my sister, asking if I had heard about the attacks unfolding back home in the States. As I learned of the mall stabbing spree in Minnesota, and the bombs in New York and New Jersey, I found myself shockingly un-phased.

It’s simply become our new normal—so I wasn’t shocked. I was saddened, but not shocked.

Soon after, I found out my family was at Crossroads Mall shortly before Dahir Ahmed Adans stabbed 10 people in a radical Islam-fueled rampage.

That shook me out of my “new normal” stupor. And it dawned on me just how many people don’t realize the incredibly dangerous position we’re all in. We’re a world ablaze with Islamic terror—and as their bloody reign displaces unknown numbers of people, terrorists are taking full and unabashed advantage of the chaos.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

And we’re letting it all right on in.

So let’s talk.

1. Why can we make instant assumptions about police officers, but when terrorists tell us EXACTLY WHY they do what they do, we’re told we can’t assume we know the cause?

Hillary Clinton reacted to the Tulsa officer involved shooting of a black man by saying that "We have got to tackle systemic racism.” She continued: "This horrible shooting again. How many times do we have to see this in our country?"

Mind you, the investigation’s just starting, and Clinton wasn’t there. And yet she’s decided it was unjustified, and rooted in racism. Meanwhile, her response to the terrorist attacks, in which one attacker was claimed by Islamic State as a “soldier,” and the other “praised a former top al-Qaeda leader” and “referenced the Islamic State”?

She “cautioned reporters not to draw conclusions about the incidents before the facts are in.”

Bottom line? These terrorists are telling us exactly who they are. Before, during, and after the attacks.

We have the facts. Hillary Clinton just doesn't like them.

2. Can you tell me when our country has reacted to the Muslim community the way the African American community reacts to officer involved shootings?

Without fail, every terror attack is immediately followed by an assumption that the Muslim community has something to fear from those of us on the receiving end of radicalism.

Tell me (save for the isolated bursts of frustration), where exactly have non-Muslims ever reacted violently and on a large scale the way that some in the African American community react to officer involved shootings? Look at North Carolina. The same people who call for unity after a terrorist attack are strangely silent as Black Lives Matter protestors rampage through communities, destroying livelihoods, harming police and spreading hate.

3. Does it matter if it’s a “lone wolf” attack?

Does labeling certain attackers, like the one in Minnesota, as “lone wolf” somehow make them less awful? Does the fact that Islamic State or Al Qaeda did not specifically call the shots somehow bring people’s lives back?

For the record, these “lone wolves” are getting to be a heck of a pack.

What’s more, Islamic State actively encourages these attackers—particularly to seek white victims so as to not distract from their intent by getting it labeled a “hate crime.”

To quote a presidential hopeful: what difference, at this point, does it make?

4. Do you realize our government is asking us to put our kids’ safety second?

I was scrolling through newsfeeds after Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a now-controversial picture of Skittles, asking people if they’d take a handful if they knew only a few of them were poisoned—and I found this gem.

The first picture out of the gate is a crying refugee child, and my heart instantly ached for her. I immediately imagined my little girl—and it makes me sick to think of children suffering.

Here’s the thing, though. Don’t I, and every other parent in America, have the right to worry about my child’s safety first?

Today we face an influx of people whom Islamic State has already confirmed that they’re infiltrating, and who are not being properly vetted.

How so, you ask?

The Obama administration has sped up the resettlement process from 24 months to three. three.

Keep in mind that this is the same government that just “mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders.”

Call me crazy for being concerned.

And I’m hardly alone in my worries. Entire states are refusing to take on the risk—like Texas, which is currently threatening to join Kansas and New Jersey “in withdrawing state participation in the refugee program.”

Why? Because (to paraphrase Texas Governor Abbot) we must balance empathy with security. We must ensure that this disease of evil horror like thisdoesn’t spread before helping others.

Period.

5. Do you understand what the Somali refugee situation has done to the state of Minnesota?

These refugees, like the Syrian refugees today, were fleeing conflict in their country—and terrorists followed them as they resettled in the U.S.:

“The radicals understood the density of people in the Somali neighborhoods … the terrorists set up programs to ‘save’ the kids. They’d invite the youth to the mosques were they’d be ‘trained’ spiritually.” (Click here to read more about Abdirizak Bihi’s work in the “Little Mogadishu” neighborhood of Minneapolis.)

A few fast facts:

• Minnesota is the epicenter of the Somali refugee relocation, with Minneapolis boasting the largest concentration of Somali refugees in the country.
• Minnesota is first in the nation when it comes to terror recruitment. 60+ Somalis from Minnesota have successfully joined terrorist organizations, with others stopped in transit—and still others sending money to help the groups.
• One Somali American enticed into fighting (and eventually dying in Syria) for Islamic State—Abdirahmaan Muhumed—had tarmac clearance at Minneapolis St. Paul airport where he cleaned and refueled airplanes.
• al-Shabaab actively recruits via Minneapolis’ Abubakar As-Saddique mosque.
• Only 41 percent of Somali men, and 54 percent of Somali women are working. In conjunction, “outside Alaska, Minnesota spends more per low-income person on public welfare than any other state in the U.S.” The stress on the taxpayer funded welfare system in the state of Minnesota is immense.

What does all of this have to do with the big picture? We’re on track to do it all over again with the Syrian refugees.

No, not all refugees will become terrorists. But doesn’t it behoove us to look at a perfect microcosm like Minnesota, and understand the risk?

I’ll leave you with this final thought: London’s mayor Sadiq Khan told us immediately following the New York attack that “terror attacks are ‘part and parcel’ of urban life.”

Um, no, terror attacks are “part and parcel” of a government who refuses to take the evil, cancerous horror of Islamic terrorism seriously, and instead chalks it up to a simply battle of “narratives.”

What bloodshed is it going to take before we realize that our lives and our nation’s safety matters?

It’s not selfish, “Islamophobic,” racist, or otherwise bigoted: it’s just reality.

Mary Ramirez is a full-time writer, creator of www.afuturefree.com(a political commentary blog), and contributor to The Chris Salcedo Show (TheBlaze Radio Network, Monday-Friday from 3 to 5 p.m. ET). She can be reached at: afuturefree@aol.com; or on Twitter: @AFutureFree

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