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Ilhan Omar’s Hate Crime
The pattern is near-identical: a Muslim woman who has very publicly made defeating Islamophobia part of her political work suffers a hate crime after Trump’s election.
She reports the crime only through the media, who sends what she says viral without asking any critical questions, despite some issues that might be worth questioning. The story is added to the tally of such crimes, as another example of what people want to believe.
At issue? If a hate crime is real, it must be prosecuted publicly and aggressively. We live in a vulnerable, volatile time. Anyone who would commit a hate crime needs, within the law, to be made an example of, lest the next one be the spark that starts a larger fire. At the same time, if a hate crime did not occur, that too must be prosecuted fully. Every false or exaggerated report adds to the arsenal of false reports that negate real reports.
Ilhan Omar
Minnesota State Representative-elect Ilhan Omar in January will become the country’s first Somali-American state legislator. She was in Washington DC, including a visit to the White House, last week for a conference. In a post on Facebook and Twitter, Omar claimed she and her sister were victims of a hate crime by a D.C. cabdriver who picked the two women up as they exited the White House. The driver called her ISIS and threatened to remove her hijab.
No Police Report
In her Facebook posting immediately after the alleged incident, Omar stated she would only file a report with the police after she returned to Minnesota, citing concerns for her safety because the driver knew the location of her hotel.
Omar did not suffer any further harassment, and had no further contact with the driver. The story went viral.
Once back in Minnesota, Omar stated she changed her mind and would not file a police report. Instead, saying she “believes criminalizing hate is not a solution and will only strengthen individual malice,” Omar instead only reported the incident in an unspecified format with DC’s Department of For-Hire Vehicles and the DC Office of Human Rights.
The former has the power to suspend a driver after a hearing. It is unclear what enforcement powers the Human Rights office has. Under the heading of “Reporting Taxicab and Vehicle-For-Hire Discrimination,” the Office focuses on denials of service, if, for example, a taxi refuses to pick up a passenger who is handicapped. Omar’s situation does not seem to be addressed.
Questions
— Omar did not address the fact that by posting the incident to Facebook, as well as doing interviews with The Rachel Maddow Show and others, she more than alerted the driver. If he wanted revenge or to attack her, there it was.
— She also did not address that by choosing not to report the act immediately to the police, the driver would be free to continue to harass other Muslim women. In fact, since there was no arrest, he is driving around DC right now. Perhaps he even seeks out Muslim women passengers as targets? Omar seems to have a responsibility here to other women and the public she is ignoring.
— Omar has not provided information about the cab she took, nor a fuller description of the driver who in her statement she described only as an “African immigrant.” Since she was picked up outside the White House, a fully surveilled area, it seems likely Omar’s cab and driver would be relatively easy to identify. Unless the driver told her “I am an immigrant,” it is unclear how Omar would know he was not born in the United States.
— Omar has not explained how the driver might have been able to remove her headcovering given the plexiglass barrier in DC cabs.
BONUS: Omar is in the midst of a swirl of accusations related to marriage fraud she may have committed for immigration purposes. See here and here.
BONUS: Here’s an example of a newspaper who actually pulled a story after realizing it could not verify what happened. But oh, the story was about a guy playing Santa Claus at a sick kid’s bedside, not an alleged hate crime…
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