Omar Fateh's Minneapolis mayoral run sparks anti-Black, Islamophobic backlash

Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh has faced a wave of racist and Islamophobic attacks after prominent right-wing social media accounts questioned the 35-year-old's citizenship and falsely claimed he was not American.

Fateh, a Minnesota state senator since 2020, launched his mayoral run on 2 December 2024 but began facing a deluge of racist abuse earlier this week when conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of the non-profit organisation Turning Point USA, wrote on X that: "Muslims [are] commanded to take over the government in the land they live."

"The attempted Islamic takeover of America is made possible thanks to mass migration," Kirk said in the same post.

Turning Point USA says it "empowers citizens of all ages to Rise Up against the radical Left in defense of freedom, free markets, and limited government".

Kirk, an activist who repeatedly attacks the religion of Islam and previously called George Floyd, the Black man killed by a white police officer in 2020, a "scumbag", continued to launch attacks on Fateh and called for an end to "third world immigration" to the US. 

Following Kirk's initial post, several conservative social media users then began attacking Fateh's mayoral bid, with some asking, "how can we send them [Somalis] BACK?"

"We need to be writing an extensive paper showing just how it came to be that there are thousands and thousands of Somalis in Minnesota," one post on X with nearly nine thousand likes reads. "Who are these people? How did they get there? Who funded it? And most importantly - how can we send them BACK." 

Fateh took to his personal X account to respond to the sudden spike in hate and the city of Minneapolis being criticised for being "too diverse".

"Minneapolis is a beautifully diverse city that stands firm in our progressive values," Fateh wrote. "The hate I’ve seen today - and most days - is not who we will ever be."

Minneapolis is a beautifully diverse city that stands firm in our progressive values. The hate I’ve seen today – and most days – is not who we will ever be.

I’m running for Mayor to work with you to achieve the affordable city we know Minneapolis can be. https://t.co/rU6v90TJPp https://t.co/3NE99XHdlY pic.twitter.com/xu0dHNz5c1

— Omar Fateh (@OmarFatehMN) July 15, 2025

Racist social media users also began sharing fake images and memes saying that Fateh was a Somali pirate in the Hollywood blockbuster film, Captain Phillips.

Others then began targeting Fateh over his connection to his brother-in-law, Muse Mohamud Mohamed, who was convicted of lying to a federal grand jury for abusing the process of submitting absentee ballots for other voters during Minnesota's primary election in August 2020.

Meanwhile, several social media users attacked Fateh for simply being a Black Somali man.

In contrast to the widespread hate, many came to the defence of the Minnesota senator and celebrated his mayoral campaign. 

Responding to Kirk's initial post on X, which has garnered over 4.1 million views and 61,000 likes, Palestinian-American academic Omar Baddar lashed out at the conservative figure's "anti-Muslim bigotry".

"How do you go from rightly insisting that antisemitism should have no place in America to propagating the most disgusting anti-Muslim bigotry imaginable as a core tenet of your worldview?" Baddar wrote.

How do you go from rightly insisting that antisemitism should have no place in America to propagating the most disgusting anti-Muslim bigotry imaginable as a core tenet of your worldview?

— Omar Baddar عمر بدّار (@OmarBaddar) July 14, 2025

One social media user on X wrote: "The reason why MAGA Republicans are outraged over Omar Fateh running for Mayor, is because his skin color offends them and they’re Islamophobic."

Most of the posts, however, focused on disputing claims about Fateh's birthplace rather than confronting the Islamophobic or anti-Black attacks. Fateh was born in Washington, DC, and is the son of immigrants from Somalia.

Omar Fateh was born in the United States. pic.twitter.com/7KKJzJ2fho

— Micah Erfan (@micah_erfan) July 14, 2025

Mayor of Minneapolis Jacob Frey came to the defence of Fateh in a post on X, saying: "Senator Omar Fateh is a proud American who is running because, like me, he loves Minneapolis.

"I'm proud that Minneapolis is a place where he can run for mayor against me on his own merits - and that this kind of bigotry is widely rejected across our great city."