Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/index.php:52) in /customers/a/c/1/hadalsame.com/httpd.www/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1794 {"id":24246,"date":"2019-04-05T09:26:56","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T08:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/?p=24246"},"modified":"2019-04-05T09:26:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T08:26:56","slug":"ilhan-omar-talks-about-the-good-trouble-shes-making-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/2019\/04\/05\/ilhan-omar-talks-about-the-good-trouble-shes-making-in-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilhan Omar talks about the (Good) trouble she\u2019s making in Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Hadalsame) 05 March 2019<\/strong><\/span> – For the first time in recent history, perhaps ever, the United States Congress is fun to watch. This has been the case since the midterm elections last fall, when a so-called \u201cblue wave\u201d washed in a Democratic sea of women, first-time campaigners, teachers, bartenders, progressive city council members, and, in the case of Minnesota\u2019s Ilhan Omar, a first-generation refugee from Somalia and devout Muslim. During the 36-year-old freshman\u2019s first months in office, she has pushed her way through the House\u2019s staid \u201cdecorum\u201d as well as its institutional racism.<\/p>\n

From her victory speech in 2018<\/a>, which she opened with the Islamic greeting \u201cAs-Salaamu-Alaikum<\/em>,\u201d to her pushing to overturn a 181-year House rule<\/a> banning headwear on the floor (Omar wears a hijab), her religious leanings have been an obsession for her detractors, such as the Republican pastor who claimed<\/a> Congress \u201cis now going to look like an Islamic republic.\u201d The fixation on Omar and her peers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a>, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib has obscured the strides they\u2019ve made to bring a new perspective to Congress. In a now-viral clip<\/a>, Omar grilled President Donald Trump\u2019s new special envoy to Venezuela, a career State Department official named Elliott Abrams, about his past involvement in human rights violations in El Salvador (\u201cDo you think that massacre was a fabulous achievement that happened under our watch?\u201d).<\/p>\n

As Omar puts it to the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay, she is simply making \u201cgood trouble.\u201d \u2014NATHAN TAYLOR PEMBERTON<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: I read that you caught 11 fish at the Minnesota Governor\u2019s Fishing Opener? Now, listen. I\u2019m from Compton. What is going on with a colored girl fishing?<\/p>\n

OMAR: That is the most-asked question. The idea that there are colored girls outperforming midwesterners at fishing is not a thing.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: I love it.<\/p>\n

OMAR: When I was in the Minnesota House, we\u2019d do a big fishing tournament every year. The governor has a boat and the lieutenant governor has a boat. I got invited once, and I joked with them that they just invited me to be like, \u201cOh, here\u2019s this new member who\u2019s an immigrant.\u201d They just thought that I\u2019d drink my tea and sit in the boat. They didn\u2019t imagine that I could come from a family of fishermen. The country I was born in has one of the longest coastlines in Africa, so fishing was very much part of our family tradition. As soon as I threw my fish hook, it was magic. I think my grandfathers were whispering to the fish and making sure that their granddaughter was defending their legacy.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: The fish were like, \u201cLet\u2019s help make this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

OMAR: It was the most fish that have been caught by a single person in the history of the fishing opener.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: When I\u2019m introduced to people, I get a lot of, \u201cShe\u2019s the first black woman to have ever had a film nominated for an Oscar for best picture,\u201d or, \u201cShe\u2019s the first black woman to win Sundance.\u201d I\u2019ve come to have a really complicated relationship with being the \u201cfirst\u201d of my kind. Considering that you\u2019re the first of so many things, I want to know what your relationship with being first is. Are you good with it, or is it complicated for you?<\/p>\n

OMAR: I have a complicated relationship with it, internally and externally. There are people who don\u2019t celebrate it in good faith and just want to have that be the box you\u2019re in\u2014like a qualifier for your success. There isn\u2019t really much discussion about your character or your qualifications and the worth and perspective that you bring to the work. You get to feel like you\u2019re drowning in it, because you don\u2019t want to mess this first thing up for everyone you want to hold the door open for. It has a negative weight.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: I\u2019m actually not the first woman capable of doing these things. I didn\u2019t just come off of a star or a moonbeam to all of a sudden be the first black woman who could do this. It\u2019s the time we\u2019re in that created the space for us. But even though we\u2019re first, the goal is to make sure that we\u2019re not the last, right?<\/p>\n

OMAR: In a way, it can be seen as people wanting to pat themselves on the back\u2014like, \u201cWe got one!\u201d I appreciate the fact that I have the opportunity to do this for the first time. But having that be the focus means that we\u2019re taking away from everyone else who is equally capable, who has a perspective that is beyond their identity. I want to make sure that people don\u2019t think that I must represent all the voices of just Muslim women, or African women, or African people. I want to make sure that people understand that it\u2019s Ilhan who represents these identities. It\u2019s not the identities who represent Ilhan. It\u2019s so complicated. It\u2019s a pile of soup in my head.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: One thing that doesn\u2019t have anything to do with your faith or your gender is the fact that you won your seat by the largest margin of any woman in history. How does that happen?<\/p>\n

OMAR: That\u2019s been one of the least talked about things.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: It\u2019s the one thing that\u2019s a direct product of your work, your labor, your strategy, your platform, your words, your passion. The other things are happenstance, really. You didn\u2019t dictate being the first. It could have been someone two years before or ten years after.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

OMAR: We didn\u2019t even know that we outperformed 428 districts around the country in voter turnout. I truly believe it\u2019s about organizing and believing that the voices of everyone that you\u2019re seeking to represent should have a seat at the table. There are a lot of people who will campaign on the idea of not leaving a vote on the table, but who won\u2019t reach every single person in their district to make sure that that\u2019s actually happening. People in our district really felt that they were being invited to participate in their democracy, and they joined in. I always say that excitement is intoxicating, and we were able to translate our excitement into a huge voter turnout.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: Social media helped me connect with all of the congresswomen who got elected in 2018. You and your sisters in Congress have turned the stereotype of what a congressperson is on its head in a very short time. Is it just a product of, \u201cHey, I\u2019m a young woman and I use social media\u201d? It\u2019s become a real hallmark of your presence in Congress.<\/p>\n

OMAR: Social media has been a part of our normal day-to-day lives. I remember watching some of these candidates like Rashida Tlaib and sharing her stuff on social media. Before I met Alexandria, my daughter and husband mentioned this young woman who was running and challenging an incumbent, so I followed her on Twitter. Then she followed me back. I inboxed her and I was like, \u201cYou\u2019ve got this. It\u2019s worth working for everything that\u2019s worth having and keep your head up.\u201d I remember being excited about Jahana Hayes out of Connecticut and pushing for Ayanna [Pressley] when the Black Caucus wasn\u2019t yet on board. I was just cheering for these women running their races. But when I joined the race, I became a part of this amazing group of people who were not only speaking to the progressive values that I cared about, but who were also people I could be in solidarity with. When our day to day was filled with lots of struggle, it was good to share something or see others share and just send the positive vibes.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: I see you all together and I imagine that it\u2019s this great sisterhood, where you see each other in the halls and on the floor. Can you just take me behind the curtain a little bit?<\/p>\n

OMAR: There are lots of text threads. There is a lot of hugging and high-fiving. We are also developing a sisterhood with many of the members who are our seniors here. There is this tradition here of men going to have their cocktail hours to drink their scotch and do their plotting, but being these very untraditional members of Congress, we have the opportunity to care about the well-being of one another, including the well-being of the people we represent. We understand that we don\u2019t have a lot of time to sit around. We\u2019re creating good trouble, and we\u2019re going to need one another.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY: Who knows what those men are doing with their scotch. I never know, and I never want to know.<\/p>\n

OMAR: I haven\u2019t been invited to those parties yet.<\/p>\n

DUVERNAY Whatever they do, one of the things that they don\u2019t experience is the constant nitpicking of everything they say. While you\u2019re talking about the idea of leadership and being in Congress, you all have this additional layer of the scrutiny. It\u2019s unprecedented. It could be very destructive and harmful, too. Each of the women who has come in with this new wave is enduring this takedown culture. How are you managing that and still doing your work?<\/p>\n

OMAR: There\u2019s mostly been a separation between the attacks on our ideas and attacks on our identities. We are trying to focus on making sure that we defend our ideas and not give people the opportunity to put us in a corner where we are stuck defending our identities. I think this is because we\u2019re of a generation that\u2019s been movement-building. That is very different and unique. We understand what self-care looks like. We understand what being in solidarity looks like. We understand what Shine Theory really looks like. So we uplift one another. We understand that my sadness is the sadness of my sisters here in Congress. And their success is my success. We\u2019re not fighting for the limelight. We\u2019re not fighting for acknowledgment. What we\u2019re fighting for is for our people.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Interview Magazine
\nFriday April 5, 2019
\nBy Ava DuVernay
\nPhotography Mayan Toledano
\nStylist Julia Baylis
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Makeup:<\/em> Mariko Hirano using<\/em> MAC Cosmetics at<\/em> The Club New York
\nSpecial Thanks:<\/em> Kimpton Hotel Monaco DC<\/p>\n

Hadalsame Media<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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