Oh America, I do love you so. Only in America can xenophobic American-born Midwesterners deep in the heart of Indian country expect other people to pay for their plan to buy a convenience store so ‘foreigners’ can’t snatch it up out from under them.
Almena Downtown Takeout is a crown jewel in the Paw Paw area, well known for its pizza, and the small-town camaraderie.
“One of those community stores, just where everyone hangs out there,” said Shannon Hartman, one of the GoFundMe organizers.
After 13 years, the store’s owner is looking to sell, and there are rumors that a foreign-born group of local convenience store owners is interested in purchasing.
“I feel that the people that are American-born understand the struggles of their own community and give back to the community,” Hartman said.
The Hartmans say that Almena Downtown Takeout is one of the few American-born-owned joints left in the town of Paw Paw, which is clearly overrun by ‘foreigners’ who are trying to ruin their beloved town with their funny accents and strange-smelling (DELICIOUS) food. Those bastards!
On the now-removed GoFundMe campaign, Shannon wrote:
“[O]ur government policies are practices that make it easier for immigrants to open up businesses but not for average people like you and me.
They are so many years immigrant gets tax free based upon visa status, as average U.S. Citizens, we don’t get tax-free timeframes to own our business.”
Hold up, sweetie, let’s clear this up. Resident aliens (‘immigrants’) are subject to the same taxes as Shannon and her husband and the rest of us. Immigrant businesses are also subject to the same taxes as any other business, be that corporate tax for corporations or ‘personal’ taxes that flow through to the individual tax returns of the business owner for LLCs or S-corps.
Come on, y’all, do you really think the federal government would pass up a chance to tax someone?
Here’s the really hilarious part, history tells us that the Potawatomi Indians populated this region until the great Indian removal of 1830. The Pokegon Band remains in Southwest Michigan to this day, and the river along which the town of Paw Paw rests was originally named by them. You know, Native Americans. They didn’t have GoFundMe back then to buy fur trading businesses out from under invading Europeans, ya know.
It appears as though the Hartmans were chased off of GoFundMe after critics in the comment section on the campaign questioned their plan. By plan, I mean xenophobia and paranoia toward ‘foreigners.’
Lucky for them, there’s still the option of the Small Business Administration, which provides loans to Americans looking to start, acquire, or expand a small business.
‘Murica!