When we are scared, we instantly look for someone to blame. It’s easier that way instead of looking around and trying to find solutions. We are angry, we want action, we need a scapegoat. And that is fine. That is totally normal. I’m angry too, we all are. However, by immediately blaming an entire group of people, not even an entire group of people but an entire culture…an entire religion. By blaming millions of people for the acts of a handful is just wrong, and the opposite of what we need to be doing. It is easy to slip into islamophobia with everything that is going on in our world with ISIS and the terror attacks that are affecting people in different countries every day. But is that woman and her husband, along with their two children who run a small business on Main Street in your town responsible for the bombings in Brussels this last week? No. Just because they go to a mosque and not a church does not mean they are terrorists. Islam is a peaceful religion that is unfortunately radicalized by a few, just like how the horrible people at the Westboro Baptist Church radicalize Christianity. But their hateful acts and rhetoric are not a representative of the entire Christian population.

This has become a huge topic in our upcoming presidential election, especially in the Republican presidential race. There has been much talk between the three remaining candidates. As we all know, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has been spewing many different ideas on how he would deal with the situation. He is calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the country and that the government should monitor mosque activity and create a database for the Muslims in our country. Ted Cruz came out the other day saying that he believes that the police should put extra patrols in mostly Muslim neighborhoods to monitor their activity. I please beg these candidates to reconsider these propositions. I urge them to speak to Muslims in these cities that they actively campaign in so that they can realize the hate filled speech they throw out in each of their speeches is causing serious damage. It is creating serious fear that does so much more hurt than they know. It is the reason that school age children are afraid to go to school simply because they read the Quran. They fear the backlash from their classmates who watch Donald Trump on TV.

However, in the GOP race, there is a bright spot shining in this debate. Candidate Governor John Kasich of Ohio recently called for a unionization of all of us and Muslim Americans in order to fight ISIS. He spoke of how we cannot fight each other, but we need to help each other in order to solve this problem. He said, “We are not fighting a war against Islam, but a war against radical Islam.” The people who practice Islam are regular people like you and me, and it is unfortunate that a few bad apples have to ruin the image of a regularly peaceful religion. He continued “We need to have a coalition of people, both Arab Muslims and us who are going to join the coalition to destroy ISIS.” The Muslim Americans who are our neighbors, our classmates and our friends want to destroy this horrible organization as well because this organization is using their religion to send a message that is radicalized and wrong. However, we must approach this situation from a position of strength, not fear and hate.