New York congresswoman retweets another post declaring ‘a boycott of the racist NY Post!’ following the paper’s front-page attack on Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backed an effort by Yemeni American shop owners in New York City to boycott the New York Post.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Saturday night, “Two years ago, Bodega owners across NYC (& cheered by neighbors) shut their shops citywide to protest Trump’s #MuslimBan. Today, that same community is banding together to reject sales of the NY Post at bodegas citywide. This is what real unity (& NYC solidarity) looks like.”
The New York representative retweeted another post declaring “a boycott of the racist NY Post!” The apparent boycott is in response to a recent cover from the newspaper echoing a political attack on Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. “Here’s your something,” the New York Post blared, beneath a photograph of the flaming Twin Towers.
The headline was in response to a snippet of Omar’s recent speech to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which the freshman Minnesota congresswoman described the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as “some people did something.”
Omar’s full quote was: “For far too long, we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties. So you can’t just say that today someone is looking at me strange and that I am trying to make myself look pleasant. You have to say that, ‘This person is looking at me strange. I am not comfortable with it, and I am going to talk to them and ask them why.’ Because that is the right you have.”
Top Democrats on Saturday rushed to defend Omar after President Donald Trump retweeted video that was edited to suggest she was being dismissive of the significance of the worst terrorist assault on U.S. soil.
The video includes Omar’s “Some people did something” quote and news footage of the hijacked planes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump also tweeted, “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scolded Trump for using the “painful images of 9/11 for a political attack” against Omar. “The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence,” she added.
And presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, campaigning in New Hampshire, accused Trump of “trying to incite violence and to divide us, and every political leader should speak out against that.”
Omar’s remark has drawn criticism largely from political opponents and conservatives who say the lawmaker — one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress — offered a flippant description of the assailants and the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
