Could Muslim Riots Start Here?

Updated. The French riots claimed their first victim Sunday night, as the wave of Muslim violence spread to 300 towns, including towns in Belgium and Germany.

It's time to ask the question: How safe is Dearborn? How safe our America's other towns with large Muslim populations?

And also, we must ask the companion question: Are we doing any better job with our Muslim populations than European countries are with theirs?

I would hope that we're not as vulnerable, if for no other reason than we haven't promised as much as the European cradle-to-grave social democracies. Still, America is not a country that greets its Muslim population with love and kisses, not since Sept. 11, and really, not before.

This is a tough assimilation, this Arab, Islam, Muslim-West meld, and we shouldn't think that we've handled it so well that we won't see the anger boil up here. France is dealing primarily with a black, Muslim, African community, a demographic we have here, although towns like Dearborn are predominently Arab Muslim. It may not make much difference, though.

Read today's AP report, which finally talks frankly about ethnicity, and see if you feel we're free of risk:

The growing violence is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in its suburbs, where many Africans and their French-born children live on society's margins, struggling with high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair — fertile terrain for crime of all sorts as well as for Muslim extremists offering frustrated youths a way out.

This is not a time to be vain and feel immune. What's happening in Europe could soon start here.

Update: Capt. Ed makes the point that the riots may be terror-related.