You know what struck me the most
honestly was when I took a minute to
actually talk to some of the Muslim
people to find out you know they are
just like me and I am uneducated on
their religion. You know I could easily
make as many mistake judgment calls as
any other person out there. Um but when
I took a second to sit down and listen
to them and um actually enter their
mosque and go in and watch some of their
prayers, it it was a beautiful thing and
they answered some of my questions that
I had and uh I just feel that maybe that
that's something that they they should
do too for the people. A lot of a lot of
us were uneducated, you know, educate us
on your religion. Let us know that not
everybody's a bad bad person. Amazing
the human connection. Look, he went into
the the mosque. He saw it wasn't a
bomb-making factory and he's calling
he's calling he's he's it's amaz he said
educate us on your religion. What are
your thoughts in those? I mean it it's
exactly an example of what I was just
talking about that there are many people
whom we may deem islamophobic at first
glance at first instance because of the
rhetoric that they engage in. And often
times it's similar to the one from the
maliciously intended, you know,
Islamophobic organized network. But we
need to go back and and analyze the
difference between the majority of
Americans who may exhibit Islamophobic
rhetoric but just don't know any better
and are fair game for engagement and can
potentially change a man like this and
those who are agenda driven and sort of
um rooted in hate and bigotry. And we
need to have different strategies. We
can't have a one-sizefitit all for the,
you know, sort of died in the wool
Islamophobes. We expose, we deconstruct,
um, and, uh, we engage in reputations of
their lives. With individuals like this
and many Americans who are like him, we
engage in education, in in awareness
building, in shedding light on the
reality of Islam and Muslims.