Yemeni-American Merchants Boycott NYP Over Inciting Hate Against Ilhan Omar

As criticism has been mounting against congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her controversial remarks over the 9/11 attacks, hundreds of Yemeni bodegas in New York have been boycotting the selling of the New York Post for its latest cover suggesting links between Omar and the 2001 terrorist attacks.

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The Yemeni American Merchants Association (YAMA) of New York, the representative organization of thousands of Yemeni merchants and owners of small neighborhood bodegas around New York, went to social media to ask everyone to take part in the boycott.

As part of stepping up against the hatred being provoked by the newspaper against Omar, the YAMA condemned the racist rhetoric that would provoke hate against Muslims and fear among them.

YAMA, the organization that was birthed from a successful Yemeni bodega strike in New York in 2017 in protest to Trump’s administration’s executive order of travel ban on Yemenis as well as other Muslim-majority nations, came in response to the latest attacks  against Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim congresswoman, by the New York Post for controversial remarks on 9/11.

Freshman congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, had her name put on in bold with the comment “Here’s your something” on a photo from 9/11 attacks for a jet crashing into the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper’s cover reads: “Rep. Ilhan Omar: 9/11 was ‘some people did something,’”. “Here’s your something: 2,977 people dead by terrorism.”

The controversial remarks were intended to suggest that Omar had underestimated the seriousness of the terror attacks in a speech last month, which led Republican politicians and Trump supporters have shared widely across social media.

However, the remarks were believed to be taken out of context for a speech Omar gave last month to members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights organization.

Omar’s 23-minute speech was uploaded to YouTube during last week and during the speech, the freshman congresswoman was describing Muslims’s struggle in the US as they have been associated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“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.”

The New York Post was not the only one who attacks Omar.

President Trump went to Twitter on Friday and posted a graphic video targeting Omar and her relations to the 9/11 attacks. The video features the burning World Trade Center towers and other images from 9/11 with a short clip for Omar saying “Some people did something” playing on the context of the sentence.

Many Republicans and right-wing politicians jumped on the video and supported it sparking a hateful wave against the congresswoman.

In response, many Democrats, politicians and activists stood up in support of Omar. On hashtag #IStandWithIlhan, the congresswoman recieved massive support.

Others have also shared an old video of Trump’s first remarks after the 9/11 attacks when he appeared to brag about his own tower that became the tallest in the city.