Dear Future President,

I am really honored to get a chance to write a letter to you. My name is Nabid Anjum and I am from Bangladesh. I believe in Islam and being Muslim is hard these days.Whenever I hear about a terrorist attack involving Muslim people I worry about myself and my family. I think just because of our religion we should not be called terrorists. The word 'Islam' means 'peace.”The word 'Muslim' means 'one who surrenders to God.' But the press makes us seem like haters. I can proudly say that Islam is a religion of peace. All the people using the name of Islam to kill people make me feel really angry and frustrated because they are killing innocent people. And as a Muslim, I feel like I am included even though that's not the truth. I am really sure that it makes other Muslims sad too. Muslims are being stereotyped. I can say not all Muslims are terrorist.

Not all the Muslims are terrorists. If one person commits an attack they think all the Muslims are bad. In reality there have been many attacks that have been carried out by Christian people. As a matter of fact, according to FBI reports, from 1980 to 2005, none of the terrorist attacks in this country were carried out by Muslims. (FBI.gov) For example, in 1995, the Oklahoma bombing was carried out by a man named Alfred P. Murrah. He was Christian and it was one of the deadliest attacks that happened on U.S. soil. 168 people were killed and 600 were injured. After that attack no one called all Christians terrorists. But when someone who is Muslim carries out an attack most of the people think all the Muslims are terrorists, and I feel that is not fair at all. History.com.  When there is an attack or mass shooting by a terrorist I pray to god that Muslims are not related with that attack. I think like that because if the attacker is Muslim I know the next day when I go out people who know I am Muslim will look at me differently.

Due to this stereotyping, Muslims here in the U.S. have been experiencing a lot of discrimination and harassment.. There have been many cases where Muslim people were bullied or even killed just because of their religion. For example, there was a case in Washington DC when a woman was wearing a hijab on March 23rd 2013. She was stopped by an officer and she was asked to remove the hijab but she refused to take it off so the officer harassed her. There were people who heard and saw what happened. According to one witness, "All I heard was he started asking her to take off her hijab:. My jaw dropped. The man next to her spoke up, but the officer continued to harass her. Ultimately he came towards her in an intimidating way, pulled out his handcuffs and said if she didn't want to take off [the hijab], she had to leave." She left. This makes me feel like one day my mom might be pulled out by an officer for just wearing a hijab. Also that woman was asked a lot of questions by officers about her identity after being arrested . According to Raja, "It's a moment of a lot of fear for Muslims, especially Muslim women" After Brussels happened, I know women in D.C. who were afraid to leave their house."  dcist.com. My mom worries about me when I go out because people are turning against Muslim people. There have been many examples and I know Muslim women and young girls are afraid to go out because they don't feel safe and they don't know if they will come home alive or if they will get bullied outside.

Some people might argue that by looking at the attacks that are happening in recent days in the United States and other countries, people naturally might react based on what is going on. Out of fear they think Muslim people are bad. However this country has made a lot of big mistakes targeting and stereotyping people . We all know that when World War II was going on between the United States and Japan, the United States treated the Japanese Americans horribly. They put them in camps and it was like a Jail. The United States did not trust Japanese people because they thought they will help their own people, but it wasn't true and the United states was wrong. The United States did not trust Japanese people because of what they did in 1941 in Pearl Harbor. We should not blame all Japanese people just because of what a few people did and also we should not blame all Muslims just because of what a few Muslims have done. Now I am thinking: are we going to make the same mistakes again with Muslim people who are living in this country and love this country as much as American people do?

To conclude, we can say that not all Muslim people are terrorist. People who use religion to commit their crimes and attacks really don't care about any religion because no religion teaches us to kill people.. So it is not fair to go against a group of people because of a few crimes or even because of their looks. We should not stereotype any specific group of people. We can't judge all people from a few bad ones. As our President, try to do something to prevent people from turning against each other. We are a nation of immigrants and the country woks better when we work together. Please help us keep to our beliefs as a great country. 

Sincerely,

Nabid Anjum