Seeing the Somali's traditional dress reminds her of Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the U.S

(Grand Island, October 18,  2008 Ceegaag Online)

An Omaha Somali leader is asking Mayor Margaret Hornady to recant comments she made in a national publication that he says are discriminatory.

In a story that appeared Thursday in The New York Times, Hornady suggested she had difficulty adjusting to the sight of local Somali women in Muslim headdresses.

Hornady said that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it "gives some of us a turn."

Seeing the Somali's traditional dress reminds her of Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the U.S., she said, adding that she knows it sounds prejudiced and that she's "working very hard on it."

Mohamed Rage, who leads the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, condemned the comments Friday and said he is trying to reach the mayor to address his concerns.

Rage said such comments are inappropriate for a leader, and the city's Somali community has reacted with shock.

"She's not fit to be a mayor," he said.

Hornady said Friday evening that she had not heard from Rage and didn't know until a reporter told her who had made the call for her to rescind her comments.

"If he really wants to discuss the issues, I'll be happy to talk with him," Hornady said.

Hornady said the comments were mostly accurate but taken out of context from an interview that lasted for 45 minutes to an hour.

She said the Times reporter misunderstood the reason for her struggle to adjust to the headdresses.

"It has next to nothing to do with religion per se," she said. "It has to do with the fact that I would find wearing that headdress very inhibiting to modern life."

Hornady's comments appeared in a story about last month's protests over prayer time at the JBS Swift & Co. plant.

Muslims, mostly of Somali background, wanted break times adjusted to allow them to pray at sunset during their holy month of Ramadan. Non-Muslims -- including Latinos, Sudanese and whites -- counterprotested those accommodations, calling it special treatment that would burden the rest of the work force.

The protests resulted in the firings of dozens of workers. A union official last put the number at about 70. Rage has argued that closer to 180 Somalis were fired.

In the Times article, Hornady was quoted as saying after she spoke of her difficulty with the Somalis' presence, "Aren't a lot of thoughtful Americans struggling with this?"

She made similar comments Friday, saying that any white Americans in modern America have to acknowledge and deal with uncomfortable feelings about constant changes in culture.

"I don't think I'm all that weird or all that mean-spirited to say, ’I think we have some work to do here,'" Hornady said.

Hornady said she's not racist, and she simply was trying to state plainly her own struggle with those cultural shifts.

"I could've given a superficial interview. I could've lied," she said. "Instead, I chose to be as honest and straightforward as I could.”

Source: Grand Island Independent

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