Commerce While Brown
They are at it again: Feds Question Pakistani Men’s Purchase Of Prepaid Phones, but this time the Feds “nipped it in the bud” before a local prosecutor got involved.
In the dim, dank days of Reagan I occasionally watched television while living in California. There was a guy who had a comedy routine that centered around altering the lyrics to familiar tunes that he played on a guitar.
One of my favorites was Buying a 7-11, to the tune of Stairway to Heaven:
I’m a man from Iraq
And I ain’t going back;
I’m buying a 7-11.
I’ll make a 100K a year
Selling condoms and beer,
So I’m buying a 7-11.
[Then you have the “oo”-ing. Since it was the Reagan years he wore a towel on his head.]
Immigrants from Asia generally don’t use banks; they use the family. The family pools its money to provide capital for a new business, often a convenience store, but Indians seem to like small motels.
The profits are funneled back into new businesses and the employees are family members. They work long hours for little money, but they know that if they work hard it will eventually be their turn to start a business and drive a Mercedes.
If people wonder why it seems that Muslims are buying these phones, maybe they should see who owns the convenience stores in the poorer neighborhoods where these phones are sold. To work with regular wholesalers you need to pass all kinds of credit checks, and most of these people don’t have the bank connections to do that.
