A Muslim veteran of the U.S. Marines is warning that Fox News and host Jeanine Pirro are stoking fear and anger against American Muslims with their messages of fear and hatred.
Mansoor Shams was a guest on CNN’s “New Day” Tuesday, and he responded to a vicious anti-Muslim attack launched by Pirro over the weekend on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), suggesting that Omar’s loyalties might be to Islam instead of the United States. Shams told Alisyn Camerota:
“I’m extremely distraught and disturbed by the things that are taking place in this nation for the last many years. I have a 12-year-old kid who told me that, in his middle school as they were changing classes, this other child comes in and yells, ‘Allahu akbar, you’re all going to die,’ then shuts the door and runs.”
Camerota then read a statement of “clarification” from Pirro in which she claimed she didn’t mean to question Rep. Omar’s loyalty to the country. But Shams said he wasn’t satisfied with it:
“I think she should be fired! You fire an individual like this, who is constantly dividing America. And I think America has to really sort of decide which path, which direction it wants to go in. Do you want to listen to people like her, who are dividing us and destroying the fabric of this nation?”
Fox and many of its hosts have been stoking the flames of hatred and division for decades now. Their mission seems to be playing one group off of another in a quest for ratings and to strengthen the hand of Republicans. Their howls of anger and intolerance have only gotten louder since Donald Trump became president and began mainstreaming his own brand of noxious racism. The message from the right — both in the media and the political world — seems to be: Those that disagree with you are the enemy and must be destroyed.
What this country needs is healing and a sense of community, two things conservatives seem opposed to.
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