During a Cabinet meeting on Dec. 2, President Donald Trump went on a rant, labeling Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and other immigrants from Somalia as “garbage.”
“We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’”
As someone who regularly has to handle garbage, wheeling it to the curb every Thursday, his words concerned me. What if he calls people from India “garbage” one day? Would I have to wheel myself to the curb? Perhaps my wife and I would wheel each other to the curb.
Me: “You first.”
She: “No, you first.”
Me: “I insist.”
She: “I resist.”
I was concerned enough about Trump’s words that I decided to randomly dial a few members of the 260,000-strong Somali community in America to find out how they are coping. The first person who didn’t hang up on me was a 32-year-old nurse.
Nurse: “It doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve been called a lot worse. ‘Garbage’ is tame compared to everything I’ve been called.”
Me: “You have an ex-husband?”
Nurse: “No, I work in a psychiatric hospital. Most of the patients are respectful to me, but every now and then, you get someone who refuses to take their medication and calls you all kinds of names. But you have to forgive them. They are going through a lot of mental distress.”
Me: “So you never get offended?”
Nurse: “No, you get used to it. Sometimes it’s amusing. Just the other day, I tried to get one man to take his meds and he said, ‘I’m the president of the United States and you can’t make me.’ I asked him, ‘What makes you think you’re the president of the United States?’ And he said, ‘Don’t you reporters have better questions to ask?’”
Me: “How do you feel about being called ‘garbage’?”
Student: “Can you ask him to tell it to my face?”
Me: “Would you Will Smith him?”
Student: “No, of course not. I just want him to come and have a conversation with me. Maybe I could help him realize that humans should never be called ‘garbage.’ It happens though, unfortunately. It even happens in sports. Some fans refer to players who don’t perform well as “garbage.’”
Me: “So a president who doesn’t perform well might also be called—”
Student: “No, never. Humans should never be called garbage. Animals should not be called garbage either. My sister would be so offended if I called her cat ‘garbage.’ She would cross me off her Christmas shopping list and stop introducing me to her friends.”
The third person who didn’t hang up on me was a 45-year-old science teacher.
Me: “How do you feel about being called ‘garbage’”?
Teacher: “The president is not very good at sorting. He’s sorting-challenged.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Teacher: “Well, I have a neighbor who takes a lot of garbage to the curb every week. He doesn’t believe in recycling. He does no sorting whatsoever, no donations to thrift stores. Anything he doesn’t want is garbage to him. But one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So every now and then, passers-by help themselves to something he has tossed out. A piece of furniture, perhaps, or even a rug.”
Me: “Do you consider yourself one of those treasures?”
Teacher: “No, I am an item from a recycling bin. I’ve been recycled in America. I was poor and unemployed in Somalia, but when I came here as a refugee, I went to college and became a teacher.”
Me: “So what the president should have said is, ‘Ilhan Omar and other Somalis are recyclables.’ That doesn’t sound very insulting.”
Teacher: “It’s a compliment. Anytime you have turned your life around, it’s a big achievement. Some immigrants come to America with higher degrees, but most of us come only with higher dreams. You can’t keep us down. Being called ‘garbage’ will not keep us down.”
