For those who have only seen hate speech coming out of the US, a video of a woman speaking out against acts "demeaning" Islam reminds us there are allies.
Uploaded in October 2010, the American pastor spoke defending Muslims and the Quran years before Daesh (ISIS) appeared, before the Syrian civil war even began. Nine years after 9/11, the woman spoke out against Islamophobic sentiments happening at the time — outrage over a mosque and Muslim community center to be built near Ground Zero, and a church hosting a Quran-burning event.
Her words still seem to resonate with the current situation:
"Don't focus on this tiny group of extremists who committed acts of violence. Focus on the hundreds of millions of Muslim people in the world who are people of faith, whose priorities and concerns and families are not so different from your own."
Despite these outliers, the perception of Islam in the US hasn't changed much since then, and incidents of discrimination often still hit Muslims living in the US. In 2014 Islam was rated the lowest by American public opinion, shortly after atheism. Judaism was rated the most positively.
By Hayat Norimine
