#IStandWithIlhan: Minnesotans Greet Omar With Love

#IStandWithIlhan: Minnesotans Greet Omar With Love

Ilhan Omar
US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar arrived in her home state of Minnesota to a large crowd of supporters at the airport who cheered and shouted “welcome home Ilhan” as she greeted her loved ones.

The rush of support came after Donald Trump’s rally in North Carolina, where the audience broke out in a chant of “send her back”, echoing Trump’s tweets from the 14th of July where he wrote “IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY HERE, YOU CAN LEAVE!”

Although the President didn’t mention the names of those his tweets were about, he wasn’t subtle either, directing the thread at “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world.”

The congresswomen he references seemed to include Omar, as well as Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley; notably, all women of colour.

The chant began after Trump accused Omar of launching “vicious and anti-Semitic screeds”, and lasted for a few moments while he stood in silence, before the crowd quietened as he finished his speech.

When a White House reporter asked why he didn’t stop the chant, Trump responded by saying “Well I think I did. I started speaking very quickly- I disagree with it by the way. But it was quite a chant and I felt a little bit badly about it.” The reporter asked if he would stop crowds from repeating the phrase in the future, to which Trump hastily said “I didn’t say it, they did.”

Multiple notable figures and elected representatives have condemned Trump’s current string of racism, with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke tweeting their support for the senator, and Omar told reporters “We have said this president is racist. We have condemned his racist remarks… I believe he is fascist.”

She also tweeted a section of Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise”: “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I rise.”

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