Identity, race, and the limits of American categories
When Donald Trump publicly lashed out at Somali Americans, the community was suddenly pushed into the centre of U.S. political debate and global media attention. Somalis were portrayed as outsiders, fraudsters, security threats, and cultural intruders. Federal authorities intensified surveillance and enforcement actions in places like Minnesota, home to the largest Somali population in the United States.
Alongside the political attacks came deeper questions about Somali identity: Who are they? Where do they belong? And why, despite being visibly Black, do many Somali Americans resist identifying as such?
The answer lies in history, culture, and the very different meaning that race carries inside and outside the United States.
“Black” as an American Social Category
In the United States, racial categories have been shaped by history more than by skin tone alone. For most Americans, “Black” refers specifically to the descendants of enslaved Africans who endured centuries of slavery, segregation, and systemic racism. After the Civil Rights era, many within this community rejected terms such as “Negro” or “coloured” and embraced “African American,” or more broadly “Black,” to assert a distinct historical and political identity.
“In the U.S., ‘Black’ is a historical condition before it is a colour.”
The term “African American” does not simply denote African ancestry; it refers to a shared historical struggle rooted in the United States. For this reason, it is generally understood as an identity exclusive to the descendants of American slavery. This distinction is so deeply embedded that even a figure like former President Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, has at times been viewed as standing outside this specific lineage—a perception that was cynically exploited by Donald Trump through the “birther” conspiracy challenging Obama’s place of birth.
Newer immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean generally do not see themselves as part of this historical group. Somali Americans are no exception.
“African American describes a history rooted in the U.S., not Africa at large.”
Identity as Somali Comes Before Race
Somali Americans do not define themselves primarily by skin colour. Like many immigrant communities, they organize identity around national origin, language, religion, and kinship, not race.
To be Somali means:
- Speaking Somali
- Belonging to Islam
- Sharing a history rooted in the Horn of Africa
- Being part of a clan system passed down through the father
For Somalis, clan ties often prove more powerful than ties of faith or proficiency in Somali. The clan system governs belonging, dictates social trust, and determines access to support networks. An individual lacking a recognized clan lineage is frequently perceived as an outsider to the community, regardless of how faithfully they adhere to Somali customs. Conversely, a Christian Somali with a clear lineage is often still considered within the communal fold.
“You are Somali before you are anything else—and race comes much later.”
In the U.S., clan networks provide jobs, housing, loans, and funeral support. Somalis may disagree deeply along clan or political lines, but in moments of crisis, they rally around one another instinctively.
Race, as Americans understand it, does not structure this internal social order.
What “Black” Means in Somalia
In Somalia and across the Horn of Africa, “Blackness” has never functioned as a political or collective identity. It is most often understood as a reference to skin shade rather than a shared social consciousness.
Within Somali memory, the term is often associated with Somali Bantu communities from the southern riverine regions—minorities who endured generations of forced labour, discrimination, and violence, particularly after the state collapsed in 1991.
“For many Somalis, ‘Black’ has historically marked difference and vulnerability, not unity.”
In the 1970s, Somalia’s revolutionary military regime attempted to dismantle this inward-looking social order. It abolished clan distinctions, outlawed discrimination, and promoted Pan-African solidarity, aligning itself with liberation movements fighting apartheid and European colonialism. The project failed, and the country’s eventual collapse ushered in one of its darkest periods.
This history complicates the idea of Black solidarity from a Somali perspective. Rather than symbolizing collective resistance, “Black” has often carried connotations of marginality.
“In the Somali context, Blackness rarely signified liberation—it more often signaled separation.”
Immigrants Don’t Organize Around Race
Somalis are not unique. Many dark-skinned immigrant groups—Haitians, Afro-Caribbeans, and Africans from other regions—organize identity around national origin, language, or religion, not race.
Their concerns often differ from those of African Americans. While African Americans may focus on police violence or voting rights rooted in centuries of domestic oppression, immigrants are often focused on:
- Legal status
- Economic survival
- Integration
- Conflicts back home
“Shared skin colour does not always mean shared history.”
This difference can create distance, even when discrimination overlaps.
No Inherited Racial Trauma
Somali immigrants did not grow up inside America’s racial fault lines. They did not inherit the collective trauma of slavery, segregation, lynching, or Jim Crow—experiences that shaped African American life for generations and produced deeply embedded strategies of survival.
As a result, many Somalis navigate American society without the instinctive caution African Americans learned over centuries. They may open businesses in neighbourhoods Black Americans historically avoided, unaware of past redlining, racial violence, or police hostility. They may approach law enforcement or public institutions without the same expectations of danger—not because racism does not exist, but because they were not socialized within its unwritten rules.
“Somalis learn American racism after arrival—not through inheritance.”
This difference in lived experience can generate tension and misunderstanding. African Americans may view Somali newcomers as naïve or detached, while Somalis may initially underestimate the depth and persistence of racial hierarchies in the United States.
Seeing the World Through White America’s Lens
The confusion deepens because American society often forces newcomers into pre-existing racial categories. White America’s understanding of race—shaped by its own history—becomes the default framework through which immigrants are seen and, eventually, taught to see themselves.
Hollywood films, television, and global media have exported American racial language far beyond U.S. borders. During the 1993 U.S. military invasion of Somalia, African American soldiers were stunned when Somali children hurled the N-word at them—having picked it up from movies, with no grasp of its violent history or meaning.
In the United States, Somalis eventually confront a similar reckoning. Regardless of how they define themselves, many white Americans will see them simply as “Black,” collapsing culture, history, and identity into a single racial label.
“Somalis discover they are Black only after arrival.”
Triple Exposure: Racism, Islamophobia, Xenophobia
Long before Donald Trump, Somali Americans were already navigating overlapping forms of discrimination: anti-Black racism and Islamophobia. Trump-era politics added a third layer—hostility rooted in national origin and immigration status—intensifying scrutiny and suspicion.
Yet Somali Americans have not withdrawn from public life. In Minnesota, they were highly visible in protests following the murder of George Floyd, standing alongside African Americans against police violence. They have also been outspoken on international issues such as Gaza, signalling political engagement that extends beyond narrow identity boundaries.
“Rejecting a label does not mean rejecting justice.”
While many Somali Americans do not identify as Black in the American sense, they recognize shared struggles against oppression and have repeatedly shown solidarity when those struggles surface.
A Complicated Place in America
Somali Americans occupy a uniquely complex position in the U.S. racial landscape. They are racialized as Black, targeted as Muslims, and stigmatized as immigrants—yet internally grounded in a strong Somali identity shaped long before American racial categories existed.
Understanding why many Somalis resist the label “Black” does not deny the reality of racism. It recognizes that race is not a universal language, and that identity is shaped by history, culture, and memory as much as by appearance.
“For Somalis, being Somali comes first. Everything else is negotiated.”
