Dear Editor: As a university professor, some of my most outstanding students were Somali. When I ran for U.S. Congress, Somali business owners in a neighboring town displayed my campaign signs in their windows. Somali residents marched with me in their hometown parade. I was honored.
At the end of the parade, a “white” resident came up to me and said, “You just managed to lose the vote of everyone in our town.” That was my first experience with the hatred some residents felt toward the Somali community.
When I tried to get a bill passed in the Minnesota state Legislature, a bill that would allow my son’s death ruling to be challenged in court, Rep. Ilhan Omar signed on to the bill as a co-sponsor. She had read the book I wrote about my son, “The Death of Officer Ryan Hoeft: A Conspiracy of Silence,” and felt it was an injustice that needed to be rectified…