{"id":15084,"date":"2016-06-07T00:20:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T00:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=15084"},"modified":"2016-06-07T00:20:02","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T00:20:02","slug":"anti-islam-sentiment-nothing-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=15084","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Islam sentiment: nothing new"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Anti-Islamic-Sentiment\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Muhammad Ali’s death this past week brings to mind something that I hadn’t considered until, oh, just a few minutes ago.<\/p>\n

The legendary fighter’s religious conversion became the subject of considerable discussion — and scorn — when he made that conversion … in 1964!<\/p>\n

Which brings to mind this thought: The anti-Muslim sentiment we’re seeing in the present day is nothing new in this country. It’s been there for decades, maybe centuries.<\/p>\n

Cassius Clay won the heavyweight boxing championship by scoring a technical knockout over Sonny Liston. Clay then announced he was becoming a Muslim and would change his name; he became Cassius X and later Muhammad Ali.<\/p>\n

Sure, over time Ali’s stature would rise to heights not seen in professional athletes. He became a revered figure not so much because he changed his religious affiliation, but because of the courage he displayed in the face of the hatred that was slung at him.<\/p>\n

The mid to late 1960s brought a level of turmoil that we hadn’t seen since, perhaps, the Civil War.<\/p>\n

The Vietnam War was going badly. Ali became a spokesman against that war. That he became a Muslim — let alone a member of the Nation of Islam — and changed his name to that foreign-sounding moniker only inflamed many people’s passions against him.<\/p>\n

Was there religious and racial bigotry coming to the fore then?<\/p>\n

I believe there was.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to what many Americans are feeling today about people who worship Islam.<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s different now. Terrorists have perverted a great religion and committed unspeakable acts in that religion’s name. A leading presidential candidate — Donald J. Trump — has declared his desire to impose a moratorium on all Muslims entering this country; how in the world he would enact such a thing is beyond me.<\/p>\n

As Ali’s death has revealed, though, the anti-Muslim sentiment in this country is far from anything that was ginned up by those 9\/11 attacks and by the Islamic State’s hideous actions.<\/p>\n

The bigotry and intolerance has been wrong for a long time.<\/p>\n\n

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Muhammad Ali’s death this past week brings to mind something that I hadn’t considered until, oh, just a few minutes ago. The legendary fighter’s religious conversion became the subject of considerable discussion — and scorn — when he made that conversion … in 1964! Which brings to mind this thought: The anti-Muslim sentiment we’re seeing … Continue reading Anti-Islam sentiment: nothing new<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18],"tags":[95,6296,1014,2349,3158,5116],"class_list":["post-15084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religious-news","category-state-news","tag-95","tag-anti-islam-sentiment","tag-civil-war","tag-islam","tag-muhammad-ali","tag-vietnam-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15087,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084\/revisions\/15087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}