Mark Meadows, the new mayor of East Lansing, a highly diverse, highly educated city, went on Facebook to blast the anti-refugee views of Gov. Rick Snyder, Donald Trump and Ben Carson. He also vowed to welcome Syrian refugees to his city, despite Snyder’s pause on the “Welcoming Michigan” policy.
Here’s what the mayor wrote:
The character of a place derives from the people who live there. In East Lansing, our character is not defined by the disputes we have over development, or relatively petty complaints but rather from the way we react to and relate to the human issues that we occasionally face.
Michigan is home to, depending on who is doing the ranking, the second or third largest Muslim population in the United States. In East Lansing, Muslims comprise the 4th largest faith and we probably have the largest population outside of Southeast Michigan of individuals with a Middle Eastern ethnic heritage. We are the home of the Islamic Center of Greater Lansing and its school.
In East Lansing, our business is education and our population, which includes nearly 7,700 foreign born students from 128 foreign countries, is (again depending on which group is doing the ranking) the second or third most educated in the United States. 71% of our population over the age of 25 have a bachelor degree or higher.
Right after 9/11 our Mosque was the subject of an errant (luckily) gunshot. A non-Muslim church on Coolidge was vandalized with anti-Muslim graffiti (demonstrating that the perpetrator probably did not receive his or her education in East Lansing). When the FBI requested our police department to indiscriminately stop and question members of our Muslim population, the then Police Chief, Lou Muhn, politely told them to take a hike. When a copy of a Qur’an was torn, burned, covered with feces and left on the steps of East Lansing’s Mosque on a later 9/11, the community reaction was to join together and to clearly and loudly reject such acts.
So, in case you are wondering why I am commenting on all this, I want to make it clear to our governor, the US Congress, our state Legislature and anyone else out there who may think the ignorant and shallow statements of Trump or Carson should be the public policy of Americans, East Lansing will welcome Syrian refugees. Send them here if you are looking for a place that they can be welcomed as we have welcomed many other refugees.
No matter what your religion is, the same message is transmitted: we have a duty to other humans to help when the need is there.
The pubic policy of this city is the local version of the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the Statue Of Liberty, especially that part: “Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me”
In East Lansing, our business is education and our population, which includes nearly 7,700 foreign born students from 128 foreign countries, is (again depending on which group is doing the ranking) the second or third most educated in the United States. 71% of our population over the age of 25 have a bachelor degree or higher.
Right after 9/11 our Mosque was the subject of an errant (luckily) gunshot. A non-Muslim church on Coolidge was vandalized with anti-Muslim graffiti (demonstrating that the perpetrator probably did not receive his or her education in East Lansing). When the FBI requested our police department to indiscriminately stop and question members of our Muslim population, the then Police Chief, Lou Muhn, politely told them to take a hike. When a copy of a Qur’an was torn, burned, covered with feces and left on the steps of East Lansing’s Mosque on a later 9/11, the community reaction was to join together and to clearly and loudly reject such acts.
So, in case you are wondering why I am commenting on all this, I want to make it clear to our governor, the US Congress, our state Legislature and anyone else out there who may think the ignorant and shallow statements of Trump or Carson should be the public policy of Americans, East Lansing will welcome Syrian refugees. Send them here if you are looking for a place that they can be welcomed as we have welcomed many other refugees.
No matter what your religion is, the same message is transmitted: we have a duty to other humans to help when the need is there.
The pubic policy of this city is the local version of the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the Statue Of Liberty, especially that part: “Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me”
