Amid continuing attacks from the Oval Office, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar finds herself feeling pressure from her critics on social media as well, but this time involving an edited video being shared heavily on Twitter.
The video has spawned an outpouring of anger and vitriol directed at Omar.
In a clip shared by Molly Prince of The Daily Caller, Omar appears to call for the profiling and mass surveillance of white men.
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“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,” she says in the edited video. “We should be profiling, monitoring, and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.”
Needless to say, fired up followers and conservative pundits, politicians, and personalities seized upon Prince’s tweet.
Figures including Sebastian Gorka and Katrina Pierson retweeted the edited clip, as did Senator Marco Rubio, with the statement “I am sure the media will now hound every Democrat to denounce this statement as racist. Right?”
The clip comes from an interview Omar did with Medhi Hasan for his show Up Front on Al Jazeera back in February 2018.
Omar’s comments came in response to a question from Hasan about Islamophobia as a “legitimate fear” over “jihadist terrorism” like the San Bernadino attack that killed 14 people or a Manhattan truck attack that killed eight people in 2017.
However, Prince’s clip leaves out some critical details.
Yes, Omar does begin by saying that “our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country,” but she follows it up by saying “If fear was the driving force of policies to keep America safe, Americans safe, inside of this country, we should be profiling, monitoring, and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.”
Writer Parker Molloy assembled a clip that showed what parts of the interview were edited out.
As many online pointed out, Omar’s full comment criticizes the hypocrisy of Islamophobia as a policy driver.
The same policies that have been directed towards Muslims, like profiling and monitoring, would never fly when directed towards white men, many people said.
“It’s telling that the idea of profiling white people is viewed as wildly insane,” wrote Vox’s Jane Coaston.
Robby Soave, an editor with Reason, initially called Omar’s comments “terrible stuff” until he saw the full video and recanted, saying “The video is misleadingly edited, and longer video makes it clear she was criticizing hypocrisy, not calling for surveillance of white people.”
Hasan and the Twitter account for his show both tweeted about the edited video to let people know it had been manipulated.
Hasan also went after Senator Rubio, demanding an apology for his retweeting of a “selectively-edited video” to make Omar “look bad and increase the number of death threats she already gets.”
Rubio’s response was not an apology, but to say that “My tweet wasn’t about her. It was about the double standard in how many in media would react. And sure enough, you make it sound as if she said we should fear ‘white supremacists.’ She didn’t. She said ‘white men.'”
For her part, Prince seemed unapologetic about the whole ordeal.
While some suggested that the editing job wasn’t so much “selective” as “malicious,” Prince defended herself, tweeting that “Everything is selectively edited. That doesn’t make it deceptively edited.”
Earlier in the week, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committe about the rise of domestic terrorism related to white supremacy.
In his testimony, Wray said that “a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence, but it does include other things as well,” according to The Hill .
“We the FBI don’t investigate the ideology, no matter how repugnant. We investigate violence. And any extremist ideology, when it turns to violence, we’re all over it.”
You can watch Omar’s full interview below.
