Politics

Aziz Ansari Opens up About Why He Fears for His Family in Op-Ed

June 24th 2016

Comedian Aziz Ansari has some not-so-funny words about presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and the anti-Muslim rhetoric he routinely spews.

In an op-ed for The New York Times, titled "Why Trump Makes Me Scared for My Family," Ansari shares what it's like to be a Muslim American in an era when Americans don't exactly picture Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai when they think of Muslims. They imagine "a scary terrorist character from 'Homeland' or some monster from the news," he writes.

Ansari points out that there are 3.3 million Muslim Americans, a mere 1,000 of whom are being investigated by the FBI for possible ties to terrorism and the Islamic State. That's .03 percent of the Muslim-American population.

He writes:

"The overwhelming number of Muslim Americans have as much in common with that monster in Orlando as any white person has with any of the white terrorists who shoot up movie theaters or schools or abortion clinics."

He goes on to explain why Trump's words about Muslim Americans are dangerous:

"The vitriolic and hate-filled rhetoric coming from Mr. Trump isn’t so far off from cursing at strangers from a car window. He has said that people in the American Muslim community 'know who the bad ones are,' implying that millions of innocent people are somehow complicit in awful attacks. ... By Mr. Trump’s logic, after the huge financial crisis of 2007-08, the best way to protect the American economy would have been to ban white males."

Trump has repeatedly called for a ban on Muslim immigrants and surveillance of mosques, and he routinely makes sweeping generalizations about the entire Islamic community.

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