It's a busier, higher-profile Monday than usual for Mayor Karen Majewski of Hamtramck, who appeared on a live CNN interview panel and spoke on WJR with host Frank Beckmann. A BBC producer arranged an interview next week, the mayor says online.
Media attention is stimulated by a weekend Washington Post article about ethnic strains in the city, where Muslims will fill four of the six council seats. (Our summary of The Post coverage, posted Monday morning, is below.)
On CNN, anchor Carol Costello asked bluntly: "You govern a majority-Muslim-American city. Are you afraid?"
Karen Majewski: "There's not a kind of level of fear that we hear when we talk about this on a national level." (Facebook photo)
Here's how the major, whose last name (pronounced My-EFF-ski) the anchor mangled, responded:
No, I'm not afraid. And actually, I'd like to make another correction. We have -- as of our last election, which was a couple weeks ago -- we elected a Muslim-majority council. Whether the demographics of the city would say we're a Muslim majority city, I don't think that we're there yet. I think we're probably somewhere in the 40-percent Muslim [share] for the city overall.
But our city council that will take office in January will be a majority-Muslim council.
"Does that concern some of your citizens, Costello wondered about the four-person Muslim bloc. Majewski repliued with a reality check about the 2.2-square-mile city with about 24,000 people:
The issues for most of our residents are: Can we fix the streets? . . . The streetlight that's out in front of my house, can we get that fixed? They're local issues.
And there's not a kind of level of fear that we hear when we talk about this on a national level. Really, our city council and our residents are most concerned with the day-to-day issues that affect their life when they walk out their front door.
(The quotes above are from a Media Matters post.)
Original article, Monday morning:
Saad Almasmari celebrates victory Nov. 3 as the top finisher in Hamtramck City Counci; voting.
Hamtramck, which became a village in 1901 and incorporated in 1922, was long known as Polish enclave within the city limits of Detroit, where the Polish language could be overhead on the streets, and delicacies of the homeland were sold.
Things changed. In 2013, Hamtramck became the first majority Muslim city in the U.S., thanks to a continued influx of immigrants from such countries as Yemen, Bangladesh and Bosnia. This month, it elected what's believed to be the first Muslim-majority city council in the U.S.
Some residents are tense about the city's direction, Sarah Pulliam Bailey reports in The Washington Post. Concerns intensifiy after recent attacks in Paris and in Africa.
Bailey speaks to the city's mayor,Karen Majewski, who owns a vintage shop in town and whose family emigrated from Poland in the early 20th century:
In many ways, Hamtramck is a microcosm of the fears gripping parts of the country since the Islamic State’s attacks on Paris: The influx of Muslims here has profoundly unsettled some residents of the town long known for its love of dancing, beer, paczki pastries and the pope.
“It’s traumatic for them,” said Majewski, a dignified-looking woman in a brown velvet dress, her long, silvery hair wound in a loose bun.
Majewski goes on to tell the Post that she has concerns that business owners within 500 feet of one of Hamtramck’s four mosques can’t obtain a liquor license. She also says some longtime residents are struggling to adjust to the repeated sounds throughout the day of mosques issuing calls to prayer.
“There’s definitely a strong feeling that Muslims are the other,” she tells the Post. “It’s about culture, what kind of place Hamtramck will become. There’s definitely a fear, and to some degree, I share it.”
Saad Almasmari
Saad Almasmari, 28, a businessman and Yemen native who became the fourth Muslim elected to the six-member city council this month, doesn’t understand the fear, writes The Post.
Almasmari campaigned on building Hamtramck’s struggling economy and improving the public schools, the Post reports. He says he's frustrated that so many residents distrust the council and expect it to be biased.
“I don’t know why people keep putting religion into politics,” Almasmari tells The Post.
