He decried the recent surge in Islamophobia following the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, saying, “We’ve seen children bullied, we’ve seen mosques vandalized…It’s not who we are”.
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The survey also showed that many Americans think a substantial segment of the US Muslim population is anti-American. You know who else visited a mosque when he was president?
During the visit, the President took the opportunity to roundly condemn “inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim Americans that has no place in our country”.
“They try to portray themselves as holy warriors… who try to speak for Islam”, he said.
“Islam has always been part of America”, he said, detailing the beginnings of the religion among African slaves brought to America.
They say that extremist violence in the the USA has led people to stereotype Muslims – to assign moderates to the same category as Islamic extremists in a way that has continually distorted perceptions about the community.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday slammed anti-Muslim rhetoric and appealed for tolerance for millions of Muslims in the country during his first visit to a U.S. mosque as president.
Obama cast blame on the entertainment industry for perpetuating negative stereotypes that cast Muslims in roles linked to storylines of terror. Obama said he didn’t want to do that when talking about terrorist groups like ISIS because “I refuse to give them that legitimacy”.
President Barack Obama gave a rallying cry in defence of religious liberty today during his first visit to a USA mosque since he was elected president. Some Muslim-Americans, he said, feel like “second-class citizens”.
Mr Obama acknowledged that this was a time of “concern and frankly of some fear” for Muslim Americans.
Speaking on the occasion, he said that Muslims are important section of American community which played key role to make United States a great country.
Obama said for more than 1,000 years, people have been drawn to Islam’s message of peace. “We still are targets of state violence”, one wrote on Twitter.
“I am not the first”, he said.
The president also asked television writers and producers to create more rounded Muslim characters on their shows.
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“When any religious group is targeted, we all have a responsibility to speak up and we have to reject politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias and targets people because of religion”.
