By Mariya Tayyab
23/12/2015
In response to Michael Moore's post about "We are All Muslim," I just wanted to say "Thank you." Funnily enough, my gratitude is not because of how he pointed out Donald Trump's irrational fear of Muslims. As a Muslim college student, I am already at a point of indecisiveness over whether I chose the right college and if I should be worried about being a part of the minority on campus.
So when people like Donald Trump suggest that Muslims should be temporarily banned from the country, I become a little depressed and start to understand why some people would prefer to live in a Muslim-majority place. I had been waiting to hear someone openly suggest that Muslims were the cause of terrorism, honestly I am sure all American Muslims had been waiting to hear this in the news. Every headline related to terrorism incited a fear in Muslims; how long until someone suggested that removing all other Muslims from the United States would solve terrorism and erase the likes of ISIS? Well not that long.
Messages like Michael Moore's were what reminded me that not everyone is okay with stereotyping, not everyone is okay with putting the blame of a few extremists on an entire group. So I want to thank him, thank you for reminding all of us that we are all Muslim. That we are all Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists. That we are all black and white. That we are all immigrants. That we are all gay. That we are all different. But that we are all American. Is that not why we live in the United States - not because we are different, but because we all love our country and that is why we are here. Some of us were born here, some of us were not, yet we all chose to live here. I think that says a lot, and I wanted to thank Michael Moore because I remembered that it is not about just defending ourselves when someone blames us for a wrong.
Rather, it is up to all of us to defend any type of injustice against any person. I think some of us forget that, we forget that in the end, we are all Americans, and that means we should stand up for each other in times of trouble. If we cannot do that now, when will we be able to do that - when people like Donald Trump have gone through discriminating against every group possible? There will come a point when there is no one left to defend you because everyone else has already been blamed for something else.
So thank you Michael Moore for reminding me that as an American, it is my duty to defend anyone as long as they live in this country -- because they are American just like me. But most of all, thank you for defending another group of people that you may have no relation to other than the fact that both of you are American.
Source: (huffingtonpost.com)
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