The Minneapolis Star Tribune published a very curious opinion piece today under the headline,
Fraud is not a characteristic of Minnesota’s immigrant communities.
What’s curious is that the author appears to be refuting an argument no one has ever made.
The piece was written by Fartun Weli, who operates a nonprofit headquartered on Lake Street in south Minneapolis.
She spends the first three paragraphs of her piece listing the various fraud scandals–Feeding Our Future, housing consultants, autism clinics, etc.–that plagued Minnesota in recent years.
Now I can understand why a nonprofit executive would be concerned by frauds that were mostly executed through nonprofits and have cast doubts on the general effectiveness of nonprofit-delivered government services. Although neither she nor her company have ever been accused of any sort of wrongdoing, the collective effect of these scandals is to give the entire nonprofit industry a bad name.
Paragraph 5 consists of a complete non sequitur,
These fraud cases have put a target on the backs of all immigrants, who are now looked at with suspicion. It has put a target on the backs of the many, overwhelmingly honest, Somali American and other immigrant providers, including nonprofits, contractors, businesses and social service organizations.
Weli cites no source for these statements, nor does she provide any context that would link these statements to anything having to do with the frauds she lists earlier.
Weli’s is perhaps the most extreme form of a “strawman” argument that I have ever encountered.
Nonetheless, she urges,
To our sisters and brothers in the Somali American, immigrant and greater communities, we ask you to be especially vigilant about any fraudulent behavior. We must have no part in it.
I guess the admonition is meant to be ex ante. Not a single person in authority, not any elected official, no one in law enforcement, the judiciary, the state bureaucracy, the media, or elsewhere have linked these fraud scandals to any ethnic group or groups.
Go to Google and search for terms that include “Minnesota,’ “Somali” “fraud” “immigrant” or some combination and you will not find a single on-point result.
Now, rarely, a fraud defendant may identify himself with a particular ethnic group, but in nearly all cases it is to accuse prosectors of some act of racism.
Weli goes on to say, without citing any evidence,
Like immigrants who came before us, we are being held to a higher standard. That may be uncomfortable and unfair, but it is a reality.
She plays the victim. But who is the victimizer?
