David DeWitt wrote a good piece at Plunderbund yesterday covering the many thoughtful responses from Ohio politicians about the knife attack by a Somali student on the campus of the Ohio State University.
One of those responses came from Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich who said that his “thoughts are with the victims of the attack right now” while praising the efforts of the first responders.
Lots of folks may not know that Ohio has a large Somali community. Columbus is home to over 45,000 Somali immigrants, with over a thousand Somali students attending Ohio’s universities and colleges. Ohio’s conservative governor certainly did seem aware of this fact when he issued his very measured and responsible statement about the OSU attack.
Kasich (unlike Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel) avoided irresponsibly labeling all Somalis as terrorists based on the actions of one misguided kid.
Sadly, this kind of response will not stand in the the current Trump-inspired, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim era we are living in.
If you want to understand what Trump has unleashed on America, and the steep uphill struggle we are facing over the next four years, you only need to read the tweets about the OSU attack, many aimed directly at Kasich, by racist and xenophobic Trump supporters.
Stay classy America…
