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Somalis and Somali Americans are denouncing Donald Trump\u2019s attacks on their communities after the United States president described them as \u201cgarbage\u201d and hurled insults at them.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s comments this week have sparked widespread outrage and accusations of racism.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n On Tuesday, the US president ended his final cabinet meeting of the year with a torrent of invective, both against the Somali diaspora and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a former child refugee from Somalia.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. Her friends are garbage,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWhen they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but b****, we don\u2019t want them in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n Minnesota state Senator Omar Fateh, who is of Somali descent, called Trump\u2019s comments \u201churtful\u201d and \u201cdisgraceful\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAlso, it was flat out wrong \u2014 calling not only our congresswoman \u2018garbage\u2019 but calling the entire community \u2018garbage\u2019, saying they\u2019re good for nothing,\u201d Fateh told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a community that has been resilient, that has produced so much. We are teachers and doctors and lawyers and even politicians taking part in every part of Minnesota\u2019s economy and the nation\u2019s economy.\u201d<\/p>\n The state legislator accused Trump of engaging in \u201cpolitical theatre\u201d to rally his base ahead of next year\u2019s mid-term elections.<\/p>\n Fateh warned that the president\u2019s rhetoric could fuel further political violence in Minnesota.<\/p>\n Already, in June, a gunman in Minnesota assassinated a Democratic state legislator and her husband and injured another lawmaker.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now our community is afraid,\u201d said Fateh, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor Minneapolis last month.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had our mosques be targeted. Myself, I had a campaign office vandalised earlier this year, and so we want to make sure that our neighbours understand that we\u2019re standing up for one another, showing up in this time in which we have a hostile federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n Khadijo Warsame, a cafe owner in Minneapolis, echoed the feeling that Trump\u2019s remarks have created an atmosphere of fear in the local Somali community.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is deserted. Every business is closed, and it has been like this for the last three days,\u201d she told Al Jaeera. \u201cAnd we are really a small business. I\u2019m scared that people [are] not showing up to buy from me, and I am like, I don\u2019t want to close my business.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies after the deadly shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, DC, last month.<\/p>\n An Afghan evacuee who worked with allied forces during the US war in Afghanistan has been charged with the shooting and has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n Trump has long attacked Congresswoman Omar and the Somali community, but his tirade against them during Tuesday\u2019s cabinet meeting was especially striking.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aThey contribute nothing. I don\u2019t want them in our country, I\u2019ll be honest with you,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese aren\u2019t people that work. These aren\u2019t people that say, \u2018Let\u2019s go, come on. Let\u2019s make this place great.\u2019 These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Omar has told reporters this week that Trump\u2019s xenophobic and Islamophobic comments are not new. \u201cBut what is weird to me is just how creepy he\u2019s been obsessed with me and the Somali community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s comments have also been rejected in Somalia, where many people are expressing anger and calling on their government to respond to the US president.<\/p>\n The US president had called the East African country \u201chell\u201d, saying that \u201cit stinks\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is intolerable,\u201d said Mogadishu resident Abdisalan Ahmed.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump insults Somalis several times every day, calling us garbage and other derogatory names we can no longer tolerate. Our leaders should address his remarks.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, several key Democratic congressmembers released a statement condemning Trump\u2019s comments, calling them \u201cxenophobic and unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of using the power of the presidency to bring our country together, President Trump chose to attack an American immigrant community, the overwhelming majority of whom are law-abiding and have made many positive contributions to the United States,\u201d the legislators said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Somalis and Somali Americans are denouncing Donald Trump\u2019s attacks on their communities after the United States president described them as \u201cgarbage\u201d and hurled insults at them. Trump\u2019s comments this week have sparked widespread outrage and accusations of racism. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list On Tuesday, the US president ended his final cabinet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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