In November 2016—during the same election that gave Donald Trump the presidency—a thirty-four-year-old black Muslim female refugee named Ilhan Omar also made history by becoming the first Somali-American Muslim women to be elected as a state legislator in Minnesota. Yet just a month after she was elected, Ms. Omar told Mother Jones magazine that she was confronted by a taxi driver who called her a "filthy" ISIS supporter, while threatening to rip off her headscarf.

SEED: The juxtaposition of historic milestone and immediate hate crime could anchor an article about the double reality of minority political achievement in America.

QUESTION: Why did a taxi driver feel emboldened to threaten an elected official? Worth exploring the security and harassment facing Muslim American politicians.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 451