Haji, a University of Vermont senior, was one of the speakers at the event and called for greater civic engagement from members of New American communities.
The gathering at the Old North End Community Center specifically targeted New Americans and was intended to teach them the nuts and bolts of voting, to inspire them to become politically engaged, and to give them an opportunity to make their concerns known to Sanders. It attracted a crowd of about 150 people, most of whom were members of the Burmese, Bhutanese, Iraqi, Somali and Sudanese communities.
It was Haji and his friend, Ahmed Noor, who suggested to volunteers for Sanders’ campaign office that they organize such an event.
“There’s a lot of Somali Bantu guys [who] talk about politics, but they don’t even vote,” said Noor, a senior at UVM.
The 22-year-old student first voted during the 2016 presidential elections, he shared: “I felt like I finally got to say my opinion.”
As he watched the hall fill up, Noor said he was “so excited” by the outpouring of interest. Having Sanders appear made the event “even better,” he continued.
The event kicked off with an introduction from Sandrine Kibuey, the associate director for Chittenden Community Action at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. A former asylee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kibuey shared her own immigration story before urging attendees to go to the polls and hold elected officials accountable.
“If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for your children,” she said.
Hemant Ghising, who works in the central office at the Burlington School District, and Barb Prine, a longtime Sanders’ campaign volunteer, took the stage next to talk about voter rights and education.
Quoting civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., City Councilor Ali Dieng (D/P-Ward 7) told the crowd that “silence is betrayal.”
Once at the podium, Sanders told the crowd that he’s a first-generation American and that his father came to the U.S. from Poland at age 17 with no money and little English. “So, I have a little bit of understanding of what it means to come to this country as a New American,” he said.
Stressing the common humanity of every individual, Sanders went on to highlight some of the issues for which he’s fighting, including raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, and making public colleges and universities tuition-free. He also called on New American parents to encourage their children to pursue jobs in the professional health care sector.
Vermont’s junior senator went on to take a couple of questions from the audience. A Somali audience member told Sanders that he hadn’t seen his mother in 20 years. But Somalia is one of the countries on President Donald Trump’s travel ban list, he continued.
Sanders agreed that the policy is “discriminatory and racist” and directed one of his staffers to take down the man’s information and vowed to have his office follow up.
The program ended about 45 minutes earlier than scheduled, and many in the crowd didn’t have the opportunity to have their questions answered.
“We did shorten a few portions of the program because it was so hot in there and we were concerned about the wellbeing of the attendees,” Sanders’ campaign manager Shannon Jackson said in a phone interview.
Every speaker got his or her chance to talk, Jackson noted. “We did collect all the questions at the end, and our staff will be following up,” he continued. “We are looking forward to additional town halls.”
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Free college tuition for everybody:
Average IQ by nation:
Iraq: 87
Bhutan: 80
Sudan: 71
Somolia: 68
Very Superior 130 and above
Superior 120-129
High Average* 110-119
Average 90-109
Low Average* 80-89
Borderline 70-79
Extremely Low* ** 69
Measured Intelligence and Education
WAIS Mean IQ Educational Equivalent
115 Mean of college graduates
105 Mean of high school graduates
100 Average for total population
75 About 50-50 chance of reaching ninth grade
Young Grandma: Count down until our posts are removed.
Young Grandma, you should explain to the people who these numbers apply to and where they came from
Not sure what the purpose of posting those supposed statistics is, or how they relate to this article, other than good old fashioned, disgusting racism.
Gi Grape – “Young Grandma, you should explain to the people who these numbers apply to and where they came from”
They appear to come from here.
https://iq-research.info/en/average-iq-by-…
Here are two takes on that highly questionable source.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/04/30/dumb-…
https://academic.oup.com/esr/article-abstr…
This is what Wikipedia says about the source (I don’t have time for more digging):
“The relationship between nations and intelligence is a controversial area of study concerning differences between nations in average intelligence test scores, their possible causes, and their correlation with measures of social well-being and economic prosperity.
Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen constructed IQ estimates for many countries using literature reviews, international student assessment studies and other methodologies to create estimates, which have been widely criticized on theoretical and methodological grounds. Subsequent research by psychologists such as Earl B. Hunt, Jelte Wicherts and Heiner Rindermann has focused on identifying potential national differences in cognitive ability and causal factors, and determining the nature of the relationship of IQ to variables such as GDP, life expectancy, and governance.”
Young Grandma – You neglected to note that your source said the U.S. average IQ is surpassed by at least 22 other countries (another source said 26).
Interesting that the discusssion has become one of iq and nation of origin and is has resulted in someone posting articles related to such studies. None noted race, just nationality. But, the USA was down in the twenties (what race is USA?), but far behind some of the other Asian countries with less average economic prosperity when compared to USA. Seems to me more of a cultural issue I.e. how much value the parents put on education. Parents, and not teachers, are the ones who need to instill value of education and insist upon study at home,
My French-speaking grandma moved to this country from Canada as a teen, the same age as some of these young men. She would’ve appreciated this kind of neighborly welcome. I’m glad one of our senators is putting forth the effort.
The comment about IQs is kind of funny, kind of sad. Unless YG’s ancestors were all indigenous she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on.
Classic racist comment disguised as an innocuous stating of facts. The comment has nothing to do with the article, but does remind me that many of my fellow white/European-descended people believe we are inherently better/smarter than others. Of course culture is one factor of cultivating an inteligent population, but so is stability, opportunity, and amount of time spent simply surviving (food, shelter, safety). With so many Bosnian refugees in Vermont, its curious why Bosnia wasnt listed but Arab and African countries were. Regardless, I at least find comfort that most of us Vermonters are accepting, neighborly, kind people who are more likely to help others than not.
I love that our local economy has been transformed by new American businesses which have stabilized North Street through thriving shops, improved the ONE real estate market with local home ownership, and prevented our schools from declining enrollment which would have laid off teachers and staff as is happening in the rest of VT. So grateful that Burlington is home to yet another new American community and generations to come!
Thanks, Kymelya for this great article. When I look at the changes in our community in the last 15 years, I am heartened not only by the vibrant city Burlington has become, but deeply impressed by our young New Americans and the work they have done to add to the richness here. Muslim Girls Making Change are just one awesome example. At the town hall meeting this weekend, I saw former UVM students of mine from Somalia and the Sudan who, after completing their BAs, have become professionals and leaders in our community.
Unfortunately, racial stereotypes and biological theories of inequality die hard, despite the research that disproves them. Doug Hoffer makes some great points about the data posted by another commenter, and he is right to caution that care needs to be taken in interpreting data.
Let me add a couple of additional things for readers to chew on:
1. Women do worse on SAT tests than men, and yet they are soaring in the academic world.
2. One of the most interesting studies on IQ is of the Buraku, a caste of people discriminated against in Japan in education, housing, and employment. Buraku children typically score ten to fifteen points below other Japanese children on IQ tests. Yet when the Buraku emigrate to the United States, the IQ gap between them and other Japanese vanishes. What this tell us is that social context matters.
My gratitude for living in a Republic where everyone has the right to freedom of speech is severely dampened when someone abuses that right by choosing to express hate and racism
Immigrants that grow up in the US and are educated here have the potential to measure best in their class. Their nationality of origin doesnt limit their IQ or potential. The opportunity and resources they encounter are likely better indicators of future success.
To contrast western societies that benefit from and promote education, (concluding that they are white) , with developing societies (people of color) is the definition of racism and White Supremacy.
One must ask what is the average IQ of the American white racist?
It makes me sad to see Americans (we are all immigrants) still believing that landed white immigrants are somehow superior. Good to see all the flashback.
There is a long history of using bad science (like the extremely dubious IQ/nationality “statistics” cited above) to justify racism and the denigrating of people of other races and ethnicities.
That long history includes the claims used to justify slavery that Africans were somehow intellectually inferior; the ugly eugenics movement that forcibly sterilized many in Native American and immigrant communities to prevent reproduction by those “genetically inferior” populations; the efforts to prohibit immigration by Jews and those from Italy, Ireland, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East based on “scientific” claims of racial superiority. This kind of pseudo-science was at the heart of the ideology that produced the Holocaust, the maintenance of Jim Crow in the US, and the system of Apartheid in South Africa.
Putting numbers in a post doesn’t make it more credible or “scientific”… it is simply an effort to dress up old-fashioned racism in a lab coat. I’m sad that 7D has allowed this racist tripe to remain up…despite guidelines that say “Sweeping generalizations of any group or individual based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or age wont be tolerated.”
Terje Anderson objects to sweeping generalizations. While I agree that Young Grandmas posts are racist and disgusting, Terje Anderson posts comments containing sweeping generalizations about conservatives, Republicans, etc., all the time.
@KNOWYOURASSUMPTIONS
That isn’t my objection, what I quoted was the 7D guidelines say about what is considered acceptable to post here: ” “Sweeping generalizations of any group or individual based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or age wont be tolerated.” I don’t see anything in the guidelines about ideology or party membership.
BTW, while you hide behind your fake name, you spew out sweeping generalizations all the time, denigrating Sanders supporters, Zuckerman supporters, the Democratic Party leadership, or anyone who challenges Phil Scott or Republicans — to say nothing of having a long history of engaging is personal attacks against me. (Which you seem determined to keep doing based on this last post.)
Drop the mask and use your real name if you want to engage in actual discussion instead of the kind of childish drive-by attacks that characterize most of your posts, But we all know you won’t do that.