January 30th, 2017

"I'm Muslim and I have three girls that are ten, eight, and two, and this is just not the America I grew up in. I just never saw this kind of hate; I see it online and it's unbelievable. When 9/11 happened, I really didn't think I was one of the terrorists. I married a Muslim man. He's not verbally abusive, he doesn't make me cover my hair. I was racist against the Middle East then, when 9/11 happened, even though my dad's from there. My husband changed my mind and I think that to just generalize and categorize that this one community's bad; I've been proven wrong by my husband and I really support this idea now. This is causing way too much hate than it needs to. It's just too much. Like, I guess the education system is really flawed to spread such hate; I guess when you lack education, maybe? But this really hurts me for my daughters. It's for my daughters, basically, because I didn't grow up in this kind of America. I was Muslim all my life and I played with regular kids. Some guy told me that we behead people. I don't know, I never beheaded anyone, so this really bothers me. There are extremists, yes, there are bad people, but my husband taught me one thing and he always said it: 'There's bad people and good people in every community. Hate is in every community but we have to minimize it as much as possible.'"