Activists are calling on former Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels to take down a new ad targeting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar that they say is insensitive, racist and “anti-woman.”
Samuels and Omar are facing off for the second time in two years in a DFL primary for the Fifth Congressional District seat. Samuels posted his campaign’s first ad Wednesday.
The ad begins with images of downtown Minneapolis and zeroes in on a “Missing” poster with Omar’s face. “Ilhan Omar has gone missing on the issues that matter most for us,” a narrator says. The ad then criticizes Omar’s stance on police reform and infrastructure bills as repeated images of the Missing poster with Omar’s face appear.
At a news conference Friday, advocates said the images in the ad were insensitive and ignored the disproportionately high rates of missing and murdered women in the Indigenous and Black communities.
“Our children, our sisters, our moms, they’re missing,” said Lakeisha Lee, who helped establish the nation’s first Murdered and Missing Black Women and Girls Office in Minnesota this year. “A political ad putting anyone’s face on a missing poster in 2024 is uncalled for.”
In Minnesota, Indigenous women and girls make up just 1% of the population, but account for 8% of the state’s female homicides. And Black women are nearly three times more likely to be killed than their white peers.
Last year, Omar introduced the Brittany Clardy Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Act, named after Lee’s sister, to create a federal office modeled after the Minnesota one. The Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force, which Lee co-chaired, reported that over 60,000 Black women and girls were missing in the U.S. in 2022.
Lee’s 18-year-old sister, Brittany Clardy, went missing in 2013. Her beaten body was found 10 days later in an impounded car. The incident sparked a decade of Lee’s advocacy for missing and murdered Black women and girls.
Friday morning’s news conference was held at the Memorial to Survivors of Sexual Assault at Boom Island Park in Minneapolis. Asma Mohammed, advocacy director for Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment, helped establish the memorial in 2020.
“I remind you that there are survivors watching, Don,” Mohammed said. “Don, if you cared at all about the women in this district you would have known better. We call on you now to take down your insensitive, racist, anti-women ad now.”
Sue Goodstar of Camp Nenookaasi also spoke at the news conference and said the ad “enraged” her.
“This is what a missing persons poster looks like,” Goodstar said as she held up a missing poster for Kateri Mishow, an Indigenous woman who was 22 at the time she went missing in Minneapolis. “Kateri is a friend of mine, and she’s been missing for 17 years. Ilhan is not missing. Ilhan’s in office.”
Jackie Rogers, a spokeswoman for Omar’s campaign, said the campaign hopes Samuels listens to community leaders and takes the ad down.
“It is shameful, yet unsurprising the Don Samuels campaign would weaponize the plight of missing Black and Indigenous women for his political gain,” Rogers said in a statement on behalf of Omar’s campaign. “His latest ad ignores the disproportionate rate of violence Black and Indigenous women experience.”
Toshira Garraway Allen, founder of Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence, spoke about the father of her son who was found dead in a dumpster after being pulled over by St. Paul police in 2009.
“This is mocking to the families who have actually endured this. This is painful, this is hurtful, this is disrespectful to the families that have actually experienced their loved ones being missing,” Garraway Allen said. “You don’t have to take it this far to advertise yourself.”
Following the news conference Friday, Don Samuels’ campaign said he did not plan to take down the ad. In an emailed statement, the campaign doubled down on criticism of Omar’s record.
“Don Samuels has spent a lifetime working with his neighbors to make neighborhoods like his in north Minneapolis safer for everyone — including and especially Black women and children,” the statement said. “Rep. Ilhan Omar has been missing, at best, when it comes to making her constituents safer and, at worst, actively undermining efforts to improve safety.”
The advocates said they are in touch with Omar but did not comment further. While they have not personally communicated with Samuels’ campaign, some of the advocates said they may consider having a conversation with him if the ad is taken down.
“It’s really hard for myself, a Black woman, to reach out to this man knowing this,” Garraway Allen said. “Once he takes the ad down, then we can maybe have a conversation and truly let him know how we feel.”
It’s not the first time Samuels has made controversial remarks about Omar in the 2024 race. Samuels called Omar a “pawn for Hamas” in a WCCO interview in June, referring to her support for Palestinians and calls for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Votes will pick the top DFL and GOP candidates in Minnesota’s August 13 primary. In 2022, Omar narrowly defeated Samuels in the DFL primary with 51% of the vote.
