Omar reflects on personal experiences with hate in making case for new envoy

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Wednesday reflected on her own painful experience with Islamophobia to push the Biden administration appoint a special envoy to monitor anti-Muslim hate in the U.S. and worldwide. 

Omar was joined by other Muslim members of Congress as well as Jewish and Asian-American lawmakers at a press conference to raise awareness about hate speech and assaults on religious and ethnic minorities. 

“As a young refugee who barely spoke English, the students mocked me, even going as far as putting chewing gum on my hijab,” Omar recounted during a press conference outside the Capitol. 

“At one point I was specifically attacked by a group of teenagers, because I didn’t bare my legs or arms during gym class. And this has followed me even as I ran for public office and represent my district in the United States Congress,” Omar said. 

Omar is one of the most highly visible members of Congress. She is one of the first two Muslim women elected to the House in 2018, and was the first to wear a hijab. 

The lawmaker came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia when she was a child. She is now well-known as a member of the so-called “squad” of progressives who entered Congress after the 2018 election. The other inaugural members of the squad were Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is also Muslim, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)

Omar has drawn intense scrutiny for making remarks critical of Israel, some of which have been criticized as antisemitic. House members in 2019 sought to rebuke Omar by passing a resolution condemning anti-semitic speech related to her remarks about Israel, but that was expanded to condemn all forms of hate speech in an effort to avoid singling out the Muslim lawmaker. 

On Wednesday, Omar addressed how she is the frequent target of anti-Muslim hate as a member of Congress. 

“Just last month, my office got a call saying ‘Muslims are terrorists. She’s a … N-word’,” the lawmaker said, adding that the individual called one of her staff members a “‘very anti-American Communist piece of shit… and I hope you get what is F-ing coming to you.”

Omar’s experience is just one of 6,000 anti-Muslim incidents documented in 2020, a nine-percent increase since 2019, according to the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and liberty organization. 

“These incidents pain me because they are so familiar,” Omar said.

Nihad Awad, co-founder and executive director of CAIR, said the group has been lobbying for 20 years for the appointment of a special envoy to monitor and combat Islamophobia. 

“I’m so glad and hopeful that this might happen under the leadership of Joe Biden and with the effort and support of members of Congress, like the ones that we have here,” he said.

Rep. Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.), who is Jewish, joined Omar in calling for a special envoy for Islamophobia similar to the State Department’s official in charge of monitoring and combating anti-semitism. That post was recently elevated by Congress to the rank of ambassador and the White House has committed to naming a nominee soon. 

“We know that Islamophobia and anti-semitism are deeply linked and as a Jewish woman I reject efforts to pit these two against each other. None of us are free, unless we are all free,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs’ district includes the small community of Poway, where in 2019 a gunman opened fire on Jewish congregants at a synagogue during the holiday of Passover, killing one person and injuring three others including a child. On Tuesday, the man pleaded guilty in San Diego Superior Court for the shooting and also for setting fire to a mosque a month before the attack. 

“I stand with my Muslim siblings experiencing Islamophobia and violence, here at home and around the globe. We cannot ignore this dramatic and disturbing rise in violence towards Muslims and we also cannot ignore how it’s linked to the rise in white supremacy around the world,” she said.

Rep. Andre Carson, one of the three Muslim members of Congress and a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, also warned about the spread of far-right extremism and white supremacy as contributing to the rise in anti-Muslim hate. 

“We are using our platforms in Congress, and certainly those of us who serve on the House Intel Committee, to urge our intelligence community to take this threat much more seriously,” he said.

Lawmakers previously wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for the envoy to be established.

Omar added that she will be introducing legislation that gives an envoy monitoring and combating Islamophobia the force of law. 

“It is time for us as policymakers to treat these problems as interconnected and genuinely global.”

Other members supporting Omar include Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who were among the nearly two-dozen Democrats at the press conference.