Saturday, September 28, 2013

Marketing Japantown


From the SF Examiner's story on the Planning Department's plan for Japantown:
Challenges for the community are that it doesn't attract the amount of tourist dollars as other neighborhoods, not many Japanese live there and in-migration of Japanese is much lower than other ethnic groups. "Keeping in mind the unique history of what's happened to our Japanese community in San Francisco, I believe it's imperative we work to protect this neighborhood's cultural jewel," said Supervisor London Breed, whose district includes Japantown.
Right. "Not many Japanese live there," which means we have to pretend that it's Japanese and preserve it! What they're really talking about is marketing the neighborhood to get more "tourist dollars." Nothing wrong with that, as long as we're clear about what we're doing, which is not really preserving a Japanese neighborhood.

See the Japantown Task Force's pie chart on the ethnic composition of the neighborhood that tells us that more black people and white people live in that neighborhood than Japanese.

Look too at the Planning Department's map. Somehow Japantown---which isn't really Japanese---has expanded two blocks South of Geary Boulevard! Development scam alert!

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Political correctness and Islam

Muslims and Westerners: The Psychological Differences
by Nicolai Sennels
New English Review

February 27th 2008. On a cold and windy Wednesday (for cyclists like myself), I took a deep breath, grabbed the microphone and did something that changed my life. In front of the Copenhagen Mayor’s Integration and Social Services Office there were gathered several journalists, a faithful Muslim musician from the famous MTV-band ‘Outlandish,’ dozens of Imams and Muslim spokesmen and a couple of hundred social workers with Muslim and Danish backgrounds.

I began to say what everybody already knew, but what nobody either wanted or dared to say: that those who are referred to as foreign criminals, religious extremists, or terrorists in the making and who are the cause of lawless parallel societies (what the conference "Diversity and Safety in the City" was about) are all Muslim. I argued that we should stop talking about "criminal foreigners" and start using the more precise term, "criminal Muslims."

As a psychologist, having had more than a hundred Muslim clients, I told them that politicians and professional social workers need to understand the cultural and religious backgrounds of criminal foreigners. That is, if we want to come up with at least somewhat effective and targeted plans on how to reduce the social unrest, anti-democratic religious movements, the violent and anti-social forces among foreigners.

I was met with strong criticism from all sides and no support at all!

Just as most soldiers in the front lines die in the first attack, many of those who attacked political correctness have experienced negative professional or social consequences. I was no exception. The Mayor of Social Services was clear. I should either refrain from using stigmatizing expressions or find myself another job. Actually I was trying to stop the so-called stigmatization of all the non-Muslim immigrants by focusing on the one group that creates all the problems.

But you can't fight City Hall. Our biggest national newspapers and radio news programs got hold of the story and the mayor was strongly criticized by the media experts on free speech and by the Danish blog-sphere. For about a month there was not a day when my name was not in one or more newspapers and the fighters for free speech took another round. I was no longer an anonymous psychologist. My name was known by everybody who read newspapers in Denmark and especially Islam-critical blogs on the internet put me in the spotlight.

Instead of keeping my mouth shut, I decided to write a book about my experiences with Muslims based on hundreds of therapy sessions. The whole circus that had happened concerning my case had already shown the necessity of breaking the taboos around criminal Muslims. Further, a serious discussion about the relationship between the Muslim culture and criminal, antisocial behavior is, indeed, very much needed.

I managed to negotiate a deal that gave me four months severance pay. I am probably the first psychologist in Copenhagen who was offered $20,000 dollars for quitting his job voluntarily. I guess they just wanted to get rid of me, ASAP. I found a well-paying job as a Military psychologist doing psychological screening of soldiers returning from the war in Afghanistan. I also started writing my book, in which I describe a psychological profile of the Muslim culture. The title of the book is Among Criminal Muslims: A Psychologist's Experiences from the Copenhagen Municipality. (Free Press Society, 2009)...

We need to understand that our non-confrontational Western ways of handling conflicts make us look weak and vulnerable to Muslim leaders. We need to understand that Muslim culture is much stronger and more determined than our guilt-ridden, self-excusing Western culture. We need to understand that Muslims will only feel at home in a Muslim culture and this is why their religious demands for Islamization of the West will never end.

The moment when a popular Islamic cleric declares a Muslim area as Islamic (such declarations are the tradition of Islam, and are happening all over the world---in China, Thailand, ex-Yugoslavia, Russia, Africa, etc.) and orders his followers to attack all non-Islamic authorities entering the area, we will have civil wars. No State can tolerate such an attack on its authority and will have to stop it from happening and stop it from growing. These “no go” self-governing areas are already full of violent criminals, weapons and Islamic extremists. They will probably not give up either their guns or themselves to the authorities voluntarily.

Such Islamic declarations have already happened on an unofficial level. All Western European countries have such “no go” areas where policemen and authorities are met with threats and flying stones upon entering, while Islamic authorities such as Imams and homegrown Sharia courts freely rule these “no go” areas, creating Muslim ghettos.

After having heard the stories from Muslims themselves about their culture, religion, home countries, Muslim ghettoes, their views on non-Muslims, democracy, women and freedom, I have no hope that we can avoid
blood, sweat and tears during this conflict. It will take many idealistic women and men many years before we reach a point where we can be sure that our freedom-loving culture will win such a conflict. As it stands now, such victory is not at all certain. I hope that many brave people will stand up for what we all believe in and be mindful of how easily it can be lost.

See also the comments on the article.

Thanks to Jihad Watch.

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