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Ilhan Omar, the US Representative for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district during her recent interview with Al Jazeera made an explosive and racist remark that has taken the internet by storm. She said:
“I would say our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country.”
As soon as the clipping of the interview surfaced on social media, Ilhan Omar has been under fire for her anti-white comment. While some pointed out that if a white politician said the same about the black community, there would be serious protests, others called her out for being racist towards the white community despite being married to a white man.
“Ilhan Omar only gets more racist with age”: Politician comes under fire for her racist remarks
Ilhan Omar has been married to a white man named Tim Mynett since March 2020. Mynett is a political consultant who has his own consultancy firm E Street Group which purportedly earned over 523,000 dollars from Omar’s campaign during the 2020 election. In fact, as per Al Jazeera, it was the biggest source of income for the company so far.
Back then, Ilhan Omar’s campaign was criticized by Republican opponents stating that it was indirectly her who was making all the money. Following this, her campaign ended their contract with Mynett’s firm saying it was to ensure “anybody who is supporting our campaign with their time or financial support feels there is no perceived issue with that support.”
In addition, her marriage was also put under scrutiny as it was her third attempt and first one with a white man. Now, with her latest racist remarks about white women, netizens have taken the opportunity to call out her hypocrisy. Here are some of the backlashes she faced online.
Interestingly, this is not the first controversy Omar got involved this year. In February 2023, she was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the grounds of her antisemitic comments.
In brief, exploring the life and career of Ilhan Omar
For those unaware, Ilhan Omar is a 40-year-old Somalia-origin American politician who has been serving as the US Representative for Minnesota’s 5th district since 2019. She is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party and before being elected to the Congress, she was part of the Minnesota State House of Representatives from 2017 to 2019.
A North Dakota State University alumna, she fled her native country during the 1995 Somali Civil War and sought asylum in the USA. She eventually settled in New York and became a US citizen in 2000.
After working as a community nutrition educator, she entered US politics in 2012 by becoming a campaign manager for Kari Dziedzic's re-election for the Minnesota State Senate.
In the subsequent year, she managed another campaign, this time for Andrew Johnson's bid to be appointed to the Minneapolis City Council. Following Johnson's successful election, she worked as his personal aide from 2013 to 2015.
In 2016, she secured a victory for the DFL Party in District 60B of the Minnesota House of Representatives, marking her official entry into politics.
Subsequently, in 2018, she ran for the US House of Representatives from Minnesota's 5th congressional district when six-term incumbent Keith Ellison announced he wouldn't seek re-election. Her successful election in 2018 made her one of the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress, and she took office in 2019.
Prior to being married to Tim Mynett, Ilhan Omar was in a faith-based marriage from 2002 to 2008 with Ahmed Hirsi, a fellow Somalian immigrant. In 2009, she married for the second time to a British Somali Ahmed Nur Said Elmi whom she divorced in 2017, although the couple was separated in 2011.
In 2018, Omar remarried Hirsi but filed for divorce within a few months. However, during their on-and-off relationship, the duo had three kids, Isra, Adnan, and Ilwad.
