White House Slams Vermont School’s Somali Flag Hoist: ‘Aliens Who Hate America Should Not Be Here… American Schools Should Fly American Flags’
A public school district in Vermont, which is shockingly nine percent Somali, has raised the Somali flag on its campus alongside the state and American flags.
The White House has now responded to the scandal, and did not hold back.
The Winooski School District, located near Burlington and serving about 8,000 residents, hoisted the flag for an entire week at the beginning of December.
Winooski has been flooded with Somalis since 2003, as part of a U.S. government resettlement program, which dumps the migrants into small communities without any attempts at assimilation and fundamentally reshapes their communities.
This flag was raised in response to President Donald Trump’s comments labeling Somali immigrants as “garbage” who refuse to assimilate into American society.
During the flag raising, the school district held an event and served catered Somali food.
Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria, who decided to fly the foreign flag, framed the gesture as a celebration of “diversity” and “civil rights.”
Chavarria, an immigrant from Nicaragua, authorized the flag-raising without prior approval from the school board.
“We invited our students and community to come together for a little moment of normalcy in a sea of racist rhetoric nationally,” Chavarria told PBS. “We felt really good about it until the ugliness came knocking Monday morning.”
The people who oppose the foreign flag raising, according to Chavarria, are “deplorable.”
PBS reports:
What ensued was a deluge of phone calls, voicemails and social media posts aimed at district workers and students. Some school phone lines were shut down — along with the district website — as a way to shield staff from harassment. Chavarria said videos of the event did not also show the U.S. and Vermont flags were still up and spread through right-wing social media apps, leaving out the important context.
“Our staff members, our administrators and our community are overwhelmed right now, and they are being viciously attacked. The content of those attacks is extremely, extremely deplorable. I don’t know what other word to use,” Chavarria said Tuesday.
Mukhtar Abdullahi, an immigrant who serves as a multilingual liaison for families in the district who speak Somali and a related dialect, said “no one, no human being, regardless of where they come from, is garbage.” Students have asked if their immigrant parents are safe, he said.
“Regardless of what happens, I know we have a strong community,” Abdullahi said. “And I’m very, very, very thankful to be part of it.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson had strong words in response to the flag scandal.
“Aliens who come to our country, complain about how much they hate America, fail to contribute to our economy, and refuse to assimilate into our society should not be here,” Jackson told PBS. “And American schools should fly American flags.”
