Detroit Lions’ Muslim Players Speak Out Against Trump

A pair of players on the Detroit Lions, both Muslims, have decided it is time to speak out against Donald Trump.

Lions safety Isa Abdul-Quddus and running back Ameer Abdullah spoke out against Trump’s idea that in this era of global jihad the U.S. should push the pause button on the immigration of Muslims into the U.S.

The players both said they felt that Trump’s rhetoric was “damaging” to the cause if Islam in America.

“That’s the scary part,” Abdul-Quddus told the Detroit News on Thursday. “I’m just hoping that either he can change his mindset to be a bit more open-minded, or people just realize we can’t have this ignorance in office.”

Despite their claims that Trump is putting American Muslims in danger, neither Abdul-Quddus nor Abdullah said they had ever experienced any anti-Muslim sentiment in Detroit.

Still, Abdullah was “sure” that “someday” he was going to be “profiled” because he is a Muslim.

“I’m sure it’s going to happen,” the Alabama-born Abdullah said. “I’m sure it’s going to come, but I will be prepared and handle it accordingly when it comes.”

For his part, Abdul-Quddus claimed that too many Americans assume that there are more “evil” Muslims that support terror than there actually are. But he also felt that Trump’s comments weren’t unexpected because the real estate mogul has been saying things like this since his campaign began.

“It was one of them things that I kind of look at the person before I look at the comment,” Abdul-Quddus told the paper. “Because Trump says a lot of things for shock value to like get people to hear him and listen to him and stuff and just to put his face in public.”

“So, I don’t really feel much disrespect when he said that because he already said he wanted to label us. He wanted to have every (Muslim) have an ID and everything, so I just kind of chalk it up as a guy that’s pretty ignorant,” he concluded.

While neither player said they were much interested in politics they both hoped that Americans would “educate” themselves on Islam.

Meanwhile a large number of Americans fully agree with Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. should put a halt to immigration by Muslims in this era of wide-spread terror attacks across the world. A recent poll showed that a plurality of Americans agree with Trump’s idea on a temporary halt to Muslims coming into the country.

Another poll found that a majority of Americans, including Democrats, view Islam in a negative light with 58 percent having an unfavorable opinion of the religion.

Finally, despite the president’s recurring claim that “99.9 percent of Muslims reject terrorism,” poll after poll shows that between 10 and 50 percent of Muslims are tolerant of one form of Islamic extremism or another.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com