Ilhan Omar: When I spoke out about systematic oppression, the Republican response was vicious
This past week, I met with community members and state lawmakers to push for more change in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. Floyd was killed in my Minnesota district — and his death was the catalyst for conversations around police brutality and structural racism that have begun to transform the nation.
Afterward, I told reporters, “We are not merely fighting to tear down systems of oppression in the criminal justice system — we are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment and in the very air we breathe. . . . As long as our economic and political systems prioritize profit, without considering who is profiting and who is being shut out, we will perpetuate this inequality. So we cannot stop at the criminal justice system. We must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever we find it.”
But minutes after my news conference, the Republican National Committee clipped 27 seconds of my speech and added a false caption that said I had just called for getting rid of the entire U.S. economy and government. Instantly, Donald Trump Jr. and right-wing “media outlets” were amplifying the false claim. That evening, Tucker Carlson dedicated a segment of his Fox News program to attacking me and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), another prominent woman of color, under the banner, “We Have to Fight to Preserve Our Nation & Heritage.” My congressional office and social media feeds were instantly flooded with hate speech, calls for deportation and, as is so often the case, death threats.
It was something I’ve become accustomed to as a black Muslim woman in public life. Donald Trump explicitly called all Somali immigrants a “disaster” for Minnesota at a 2016 campaign rally in my state. As soon as I was elected, the Republican Party announced it would make racial division an explicit strategy. It has followed through on that promise. Early in my term, the president tweeted another deceptively edited video of me, implying that I celebrated the 9/11 attacks (itself an Islamophobic dog whistle). As recently as last week, the Trump campaign produced a video calling former vice president Joe Biden a “Trojan horse” for me and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ilhan-omar-when-i-spoke-out-about-systematic-oppression-the-republican-response-was-vicious/2020/07/15/5bc79f7a-c6ce-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html
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