Does Donald Trump Care About Muslims?

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President Donald Trump seems to be trying to convince the world he doesn’t care about Muslims. Which is a damn shame because there are 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States and 1.8 billion globally, according to Pew.

In London last night, a “clean-shaven white man” drove a van into a group of Muslims outside of their mosque. It is the holy month. They had just broken their fast for the day. This was a deliberate, pointed hate crime. This was a terrorist attack.

And yet, President Trump hasn’t said anything. Maybe because it doesn’t fit his agenda. Maybe because it doesn’t cater to his base. Maybe because he just doesn’t care about Muslims.

On June 3rd, when two men drove a van into a crowd on the London Bridge, reportedly shouting “this is for Allah”, President Trump responded quickly. He seized the moment to push for his unconstitutional Muslim Ban. (Yes, I am calling it a Muslim Ban because Trump has done so himself – in December of 2015, when he said at a campaign stop, ““Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on”.)

He then belittled London Mayor Sadiq Khan and doubled down on his Muslim Ban.

On May 27th, two men were killed and a third injured after trying to stop a white man from harassing Muslim women on a train in Portland, Oregon. President Trump stayed silent for three days before calling the murders “unacceptable”. The Portland attack didn’t fit President Trump’s narrative. In President Trump’s narrative, Muslims are radicalized and dangerous and encroaching on the American way of life. In the Portland attack, a Muslim teenager was targeted while riding a train. In the Portland attack, three brave men stood up to bigotry and hate. Unfortunately, our President stands for bigotry and hate.

In the wake of the Manchester terrorist attack during an Ariana Grande concert when 22 people were killed, President Trump took the time to call the terrorists “evil losers”. And yet, he stayed silent on the anniversary of the Charleston Church shooting where a white supremacist targeted and murdered nine black people at the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South.

President Trump, we notice your silence. We notice your cowardice. We remember every time you have let a terrorist attack go unnoticed by the man in the highest office in the United States because it doesn’t fit the narrative you are trying so desperately to convince Americans of. We will not forget. We will speak the names of the victims of these crimes, even if you refuse to.