He Called Us ‘Garbage.’ Here is the Somali Community I Know.

By Faisa Ahmed

I am an American and a member of the Minnesota Somali community.

President Donald Trump called me and my 221,000 fellow Somali Americans “garbage.” The secretary of defense, who is Minnesota born, eagerly and immediately endorsed the “garbage” remark and Trump’s conclusion that we are unwanted in this country and should be sent away.

The secretary of state, the vice president and the rest of the cabinet cheered and banged on the table and applauded this hateful and profoundly ignorant assault on my community.

Profoundly ignorant and profoundly ironic — because the Somali community I know is everything that conservatives and Republicans claim to want in America.

We are people of deep and unwavering faith. We pray five times a day, no matter where we are, no matter who’s looking.

We are generous people who give freely and without hesitation to our neighbors, regardless of where they’re from or who they vote for.

We are so damn funny. We love so deeply. We proudly live our values. We do not cower.

We are as American as apple pie and as Minnesotan as ranch dressing, and we have invested in our communities, our state and our nation.

We are among the doctors and nurses who led our state through the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are among the small business owners who make our communities great places to live and make a living.

We are among the students preparing to help Minnesota thrive for another generation.

Yet despite all that, just ask any Somali person in your life if the president’s hateful attacks came as a shock to them, and they’ll tell you “no.”

This year, right-wing influencers and YouTubers showed up in our communities to make videos about “Little Mogadishu.” These videos, meant only to dehumanize us and incite violence and hatred against us, pulled millions of views. Right-wing trolls spread bizarre, disgusting conspiracies about our genetics and our IQ levels.

They questioned U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s loyalty to America and called for her to be denaturalized and deported. They came up with one wildly racist and false smear campaign after another against Senator Omar Fateh—demonizing him, darkening his image, and weaponizing similar rhetoric we are seeing today.

Hateful, Proud Boy-esque vandalism has spread across our communities, calling for us to be deported and leaving threats on Somali candidates’ campaign offices.

And that’s just this year.

So no, it is not surprising that our president — needing a distraction from rising prices, broken campaign promises and a crumbling coalition — hopped on the bandwagon to scapegoat our community. It is sad that the president is choosing racism and fearmongering rather than simply doing the job he was elected to do, but sadder still that, given the state of our society and country, this is what the vast majority of us expected. 

Trump will always be on the lookout for the next fearmongering sideshow to distract and divide us from the harm that his administration is inflicting. But he will learn a hard lesson about the communities he perceives to be weak. The Minnesota Somali community, like others he has chosen to bully and attack, is full of tough leaders who have been facing scary, hateful people for their whole careers and probably still will be, long after Trump has once again faded into memory.

Unfortunately, in the immediate term, the full weight of the federal government is barreling down on my community. Families are being separated. People are making contingency plans in anticipation of the unthinkable and unacceptable. I would never wish upon anyone to have to tell their parents, who have been citizens for nearly 30 years, what documents to carry, how to move, what to be ready for, in the very country they call home. But that is my reality now. That is our reality now.

So please continue telling the stories of the impact the Somali American community has had on you and your loved ones; support our businesses; donate to the boots-on-the-ground organizations that are helping the community. If you do nothing else, please shut down this dehumanizing rhetoric everywhere you hear it — from family, friends, strangers on social media, anywhere you see it. It is on all of us to do our part in stopping this cycle of dehumanization of immigrant communities.

To my Somali brothers and sisters. “Iskaashato Ma Kufto.” If we lean on each other, we won’t fall. We did not survive civil war, famine and exile just to be intimidated into silence. We have left behind and buried too many, rebuilt too often, and prayed too many times through the darkest hours, to let this break us.

Minnesota is our home. America is our home. And our community will not be pushed out.

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Faisa Ahmed is a second-generation Somali Minnesotan, communicator and organizer who has worked on electoral and issue-based campaigns across Minnesota. This article was originally produced by Minnesota Reformer, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Florida Phoenix, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.