Abstract
U.S. House of Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is the first Somali refugee elected to the U.S. Congress. She is also one of the first two elected Muslim Congresswomen. Before heading to Washington, DC, Representative Omar made political inroads in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She became the first Somali elected to a state legislature, winning the Minnesota House of Representative seat vacated by Keith Ellison, an African American and Muslim. While her elections on state and national levels of government were cheered by Somalis in the United States and the Diaspora, white supremacists and nativists resented her. Some outright hated her. Anti-refugee, anti-Somali sentiments, and stereotypes of Somalis as terrorists in Europe and around the globe are the same negative narratives and images produced in the United States to fuel resistance to resettling Somali refugees. That resistance emanates from and underlies discriminatory social attitudes, and foreign and domestic public policies Ex-President Trump’s Tweets and rhetoric against Representative Omar were indicative of white supremacists’ and nativists’ rejection of her as a person and as an elected official. This essay explores why her racial, gender, religious, ideological, and class identities do not represent who nativists and white supremacists envision as an American and a person in a position of power.
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Notes
- 1.
The United Nations High Commissioner for refugees defines a refugee as a person who is forced to flee their home country because of a justifiable fear of persecution based on race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, social group membership, political engagement, and opinions (UNHCR, 2021).
For this text, State is written with a capital “S” to distinguish a sovereign entity in the international system from a state that comprises the United States of America.
- 2.
The term African American refers to descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States in this chapter.
- 3.
“Black” in this writing denotes anyone identifying as a descendant of Africans regardless of their geographical location.
- 4.
The first iteration of the Executive Order banned nationals from Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iran (Trump, 2017).
- 5.
Immigrants choose to leave their home countries while refugees leave involuntarily due to war, violent conflicts, natural disasters, environmental catastrophes, or guerrilla warfare. An asylum seeker is a person from another country already in the United States requesting to remain in the United States (USCIS, 2021).
- 6.
In the United States, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) means nationals from other countries are permitted to remain in the United States for a limited number of days designated by the federal government. Once those days have expired, those under temporary protection must return to their home country unless the United States extends their time.
- 7.
The legal age a permanent resident (Green Card holder) can become a naturalized citizen is 18. However, there are legal circumstances that allow for the automatic naturalization of children under 18 whose parent becomes a naturalized citizen (USCIS, 2021).
- 8.
“Benjamins” is a colloquial reference to the U.S. $100.00 dollar bill because Benjamin Franklin’s face is on the note.
- 9.
The Forward is an American magazine that covers political, social, art, and other news important to Jewish-Americans. It was founded in 1897.
AIPAC stands for The American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC is a bipartisan Israeli lobbyist group. More details on the organization are on its website, which is https://www.aipac.org/about-aipac/mission
- 10.
It is understood that Muslim countries practice Islam differently. The sects of Sunnis and Shi’ites are recognized as two of the most commonly known branches of Islam.
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Brown Crosby, D. (2022). In the Spirit of Queen Araweelo: An Analysis of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s Disruption of Nativism and White Supremacy. In: Johansen, B.E., Akande, A. (eds) Get Your Knee Off Our Necks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85155-2_7
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