Very Troubling Indeed ! - by Hénock Gugsa

 Very Troubling Indeed ! 

~ by Hénock Gugsa ~

From: The Star Tribune , December 12,2016 * 

State Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar, DFL-Minneapolis, said Monday that she reported to Washington, D.C., authorities an incident from last week in which she said she was harassed and threatened by a cabdriver ....
Omar, who will become the country's first Somali-American state legislator, was in the nation's capital last week for a conference attended by other state lawmakers. In a post on Facebook and Twitter last Wednesday, Omar said that she and her sister endured harassment the day before by a D.C. cabdriver after she attended a training at the White House.
The driver, Omar said, called her "ISIS" and threatened to remove her hijab.  [In] her Monday statement she described [the cabdriver] as an "African immigrant."
"It is essential we recognize what happened to me is not an isolated incident ...."  Omar said she has not filed a police report "because I believe criminalizing hate is not a solution and will only strengthen individual malice. Bigotry is a product of ignorance; by educating people, we will move toward respect and understanding." 
 * Source: Star Tribune, December 12,2016

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  I find this report of the allegation by Ilhan Omar very confusing and troubling!  My reasons (or questions) are as follows ...  
1 - Why does she not consider this a "criminal" act ?  Does she not consider "Hate" a serious offense tantamount to crime?  Is she maybe acknowledging there has also been a lot of "Hate" and resentment inside her own [the Somali] community for quite some time now?  
2 - Does she think that the fact [?] the cabdriver is an African mitigates the seriousness of the issue?  Would she be more concerned if he had been a non-black person?  
3 - Has it ever occurred to Ilhan Omar that when she chose the path of public office, especially in the prevailing political climate, that she is fair game from all sides including her own?!   
4 - Does she recognize that her duty now is mainly to work within her own community (changing minds, attitudes, and rigid beliefs) and then to liaise with the rest of society to bring about improved understanding and agreement?

Good Notes to Self - by Hénock Gugsa

============= Good Notes to Self =============

by 

Hénock Gugsa

This past week, I had a good exchange with a friend on Facebook ....

HG ===> At another post, a friend suggests that starting January 1st ... how about logging down on paper (in a file somewhere) only the good things that happen in your life. Then, at the end of the year, go back and read them and smile.  Life has got to offer some good things even in the bleakest of times!

DK ===> I named my office my "I love me room!"  I have a wall of acknowledgments to remind me that I can stand for things worthy the effort, and I have a file drawer full of notes from former students, parents, colleagues and people in the community.  When I find the world bearing down on me and feeling hopeless, I open that drawer and humbly wrap myself in gratitude for the blessings life has brought me.  It helps when things seem their bleakest to have a touch stone.

HG ===> Thank you, Dan. Life indeed is a worthwhile undertaking in the hands of a wise person.  Above all, the learning, the sharing, and the caring is what I find most blissful and satisfying.  And if "memory" or the capacity for it remains in tact, then we can say that sanity is achievable ... humor and balance will stay in place!