Two Muslim Lions respond to Donald Trump's 'ignorant' proposal
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently proposed a ban on all Muslim travel to the United States, and at least two Detroit Lions find that off-putting
Lions safety Isa Abdul-Quddus and running back Ameer Abdullah are both practicing Muslims. On Wednesday, like many other Americans, they responded to Trump's proposed ban.
Abdul-Quddus said this is a typical Trump tactic, according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, so he's not losing any sleep over it:
Abdullah is a little more concerned about this type of rhetoric and the effect it can have on a group of people the size of Trump's following. He encouraged potential voters to educate themselves, via the Free Press:
It was one of them things that I kind of look at the person before I look at the comment because Trump says a lot of things for shock value to get people to hear him and listen to him and stuff, just to put his face in the public. So I don't really feel much disrespect when he said that, cause he already said he wanted to label us, he wanted everybody to have an ID. So I just kind of chalk it up as a guy that's pretty ignorant.
Political conversation can get pretty nasty, especially when a candidate as controversial as Trump is running for president. Yet, Abdul-Quddus and Abdullah were both able to share their opinions gracefully and without using vitriolic speech.
There's too many people in this country to account for to have everyone think a certain way, think a positive way. But like I said, when you have someone like him say some things, a large following that he has – he has a very large following – it's kind of disappointing from my perspective. But I just encourage everyone to educate yourself before you take a stance on something that you may not really know about. It's a very foreign thing for this country. The majority of this country are Christians. So I just encourage them to educate themselves.
Abdul-Quddus echoed Abdullah's general sentiment when making a closing comment on the issue, per the Free Press:
Who knew an NFL locker room would be a source of such insightful political discourse?
I just pray that the Americans have a better mindset to think that all Muslims are evil. Because there's a lot of Muslims doing great things out here and there's a lot of Muslims that did great things for America. It's tough to see that because it's like we're all getting alienated when just a small percentage of people are really doing bad. And if it really was bad for Muslims it would honestly, it would be worse than this because there's a lot of Muslims in America and if we were all evil, this world would be gone. But it's not true. Clearly not true.
