Posted on 04/24/2008 6:53:31 AM PDT by hemogoblin
The small barren courtyard that separates the apartment buildings of Dwan Dillard and Mohamed Adin in Northwest Roanoke might as well be an ocean, so deep is the dislike that the American-born black woman and the Somali Bantu refugee have of each other.
"That out there is a war zone," said Dillard, whose four children live with her at Maple Grove Apartments, a blighted complex of four buildings with a total of 40 units on Pilot Street near Melrose Avenue. "The African children attack ours. They throw rocks."
Adin, who lives with his wife and nine children, blames "the Americans." Through an interpreter he said, "Day and night they throw rocks at our building. They yell at us. We are afraid. This isn't what we came to this country for."
Graffiti on the Maple Grove Apartments street sign read "Americans only," and "Africans not welcome."
The Catholic Diocese of Richmond's Refugee and Immigration Services office in Roanoke has been placing families from Africa and other countries in area apartments for years, with low rents being a key factor in settling them.
Maple Grove has been a favored destination for refugees from Somalia and other African nations since 2003, said Beth Lutjen, the agency's director. "They have become a community here," she said, walking around the complex Monday after receiving several complaints from her clients. "But now the tensions between the Africans and the American blacks have reached a crisis point."
Lutjen began searching for apartments elsewhere in Roanoke for the African refugees earlier this month, after Adin and other immigrants complained about the rock throwing and alleged that some of their children have been beaten by black American kids while waiting for the bus to nearby Westside Elementary School.
On Monday, the Africans kept 16 of their children home from Westside, Adin said. "We were afraid to let them go outside."
Most of the children returned to school Tuesday.
Police seek solution to residents' complaints
On Wednesday night, Amy Nasta, the coordinator of Virginia Tech's Pilot Street Program, a nonprofit refugee education program that rents a unit at Maple Grove Apartments as classroom space, said she called an ambulance to treat a refugee who said she had been roughed up by an American-born neighbor. "She was seven months pregnant," said Nasta, who said the woman alleged she was injured when the neighbor barged into her apartment looking for his child's missing soccer ball.
Nasta declined to identify the victim, fearing for her safety, as did a spokesperson at Lewis-Gale Medical Center. Her condition couldn't be learned on Wednesday.
Nasta said she also reported the incident to Roanoke police. Aisha Johnson, a police spokeswoman, said an officer recorded the matter as an assault but no arrests have been made.
Police records show 17 requests for their presence at the apartment complex in March, but it isn't clear how many were related directly to the tension among residents. Lutjen said the police community resource officer in the area has scheduled a meeting with her on Friday to discuss a possible solution to the tensions.
Lutjen said she fears more violence and so do some residents.
"I have a gun. If they hurt my kids, I'll use it," said Tricia Arrington, an American-born black woman with five children. Interviewed Monday outside her apartment, she said, "My 9-year-old daughter came in from riding the school bus with those Africans and they had spit all over her face. I ain't about to let them keep doing that."
The troubled atmosphere at Maple Grove Apartments has become too much for Nasta to continue her program there beyond the expiration of her lease at the end of May. "We're going to relocate because of the violence," she said.
Hostilities between black Americans and African refugees aren't new or unique to Roanoke, said Carl Taylor, a sociologist at Michigan State University who studies youth violence. "There's a lot of ignorance on both sides about the different cultures."
For several years the American blacks and the Africans -- many of whom have started the lengthy citizenship application process -- lived in harmony at Maple Grove Apartments, both groups said. Several new American-born families have moved in since the beginning of the year, when the troubles began, but no one is accusing specific families or individuals.
Apartments' condition contributes to stress
A contributing factor of late is the worsening physical conditions of some apartments and the public laundry room. Roanoke city code enforcement officials have cited four apartments as needing repairs since March 19, and one was condemned and ordered vacated.
The owner, Dr. George Abraham, a Roanoke allergist who has a private practice at 1117 S. Jefferson St., met and spoke with The Roanoke Times but declined to comment on the record about either the condition of the apartments or the rift among his tenants. Abraham immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt three decades ago and has owned Maple Grove Apartments for five years.
Lutjen said Abraham "hasn't been very helpful" in responding to complaints about maintenance of the apartments, including one potential health hazard: the ample presence of mold in several units. "You might think an allergist would show more concern about large amounts of mold in apartments he's renting, especially to people with children," she said.
For those sensitive to molds, prolonged exposure can cause eye irritation, nasal stuffiness and wheezing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. More severe reactions are possible in people with allergies or asthma. Abraham declined to comment on the presence of mold in the apartments when asked by The Roanoke Times.
The mold in one apartment was cited in March by Troy Coles, a city code inspector. That mold, growing on a bathroom wall, can't be kept under control merely with extra cleaning by the resident, he said, blaming drywall that has been saturated with water -- possibly from a roof leak. "Some of the drywall has to be replaced," he said.
Another factor angering both the Americans and the refugees is that Abraham recently raised rents on many apartments -- which residents said range from $425 to $550 a month. The $25 per month increase is partly to pay for damage such as broken windows caused by thrown rocks, the residents said. "But we aren't the ones throwing the rocks, it's the Africans," Dillard said.
Abraham declined to comment on the rent increase.
Tracy Reyes, one of the few whites living at Maple Grove Apartments, said she sees the causes for anger among both groups. "Everybody just needs to calm down. This is America; there's supposed to be a place for all of us."
I smell ....... racism!
There don’t seem to be any “typical white people” in that community.
DIFFERENT CULTURES?...I THOUGHT ALL CULTURES WERE EQUAL!.......I GUESS SOME CULTURES ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.......I wonder if the Americans still refer to themselves as "African-American"?............
Can’t we all just get along?
...she said bitterly as she clung to her gun and Bible....
This is just rich.
I lived in that neighborhood 40 years ago ....
“...she said bitterly as she clung to her gun and Bible....”
On her way to vote for Obama...
It’s hilarious.
I live in a community that has many African immigrants and work in a company that employs Africans, American blacks, and Caribbean blacks. I have noticed that the African and Caribbean blacks are suspicious of American blacks, whom they consider lazy and slovenly. The African and Caribbean immigrants are working hard while the Americans congregate in the break room, laughing loudly and talking about their abortions. Meanwhile, the coarse vulgar Americans are envious of the benefits hard work is bringing to their African colleagues. There have been some muttered protests when Africans were promoted into supervisory positions over the heads of American blacks.
Not all the American blacks behave that way, of course—some of them are well-bred, well-dressed, well-educated Christian ladies and gentlemen. But the ones who really are lazy and slovenly give the rest a bad name in the eyes of the Africans and Caribbean immigrants.
Where are the children’s fathers. Oh .... never mind.
As sad as this scenario is, I am grabbing popcorn to watch how the liberals will sort this one out! That is the entertaining part that I crave. seems to me the Somali’s are the ones who can claim the real African title and I am sure that is what stirs these generational welfare cases up so much, the fact that someone is more entitled to a title.
By the way, a white South African is more african than these welfare cases in the projects as well!
Definitely. I literally laughed out loud when I read the title.
We have a black friend, a woman, from Nigeria. She said the same thing — she also believes American blacks are lazy and slovenly. Immigration seems to bring a mirror from the outside to these lowlifes, and I welcome that.
Yep. The age old Mandinka vs Bantu problem.
Does that need a sarcasm tag? ..... Naaaaah.
Africa is, basically, a tribal continent. The “nations” of Africa are merely modernized (if you can call it that) versions of tribal chiefdoms. I cannot tell a Hutu from an Tutsi or a Bantu from a Zulu. But you can sure as hell bet that THEY can! We, both black and white, in the US are used to the “generic” black person, a descendant of all the enslaved peoples that were brought over from Africa in the 16th thru the 19th centuries. They have lost all identity with the original tribes from which they were a part. But, the modern day Africans are still acutely aware of their “identity”. When they come here, the tribal mentality is still active and they see themselves in a “us vs them” state of being. Assimilation for them is much harder to accomplish than for other ethnic groups from other continents. The American blacks see them as something “different” than themselves and so do not fully trust the “foreigners” in a way that is quite similar to the tribal differences of the Africans.....
I think the issue is that these African folks had enough initiative, discipline, and determination to immigrate (legally). Most of them are committed Christians, too. So it’s no wonder they work hard, become successful, and can send their children to college. There are probably some lazy, slovenly ones back home in Africa because lazy, slovenly people typically don’t have the drive to move to another country. There are good and bad people all over the world.
This problem will be resolved within a few years. Soon the African immigrants will all have decent jobs or small businesses, and move into their own homes, leaving the African Americans and many generations of their descendants to stew in their racial resentments and moldy welfare apartments.
I bet the African kids take school seriously, too. In the next generation, it is they who will be the slum-lord doctors.
Nurture beats nature every time.
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