Wendy Sherman: “I rise to address several aspects of the recent tragedy, the recent outrage. I want to associate myself with the…”

“I rise to address several aspects of the recent tragedy, the recent outrage. I want to associate myself with the statements of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) when he came to this floor and talked about how important it was that we treat everyone with dignity and with respect, and decried several incidents involving discrimination against those of the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu faiths. Let us, though, also applaud the 99.999 percent of Americans who in fact today are treating their fellow Americans with tolerance and respect. I had a large public meeting in my district in which one of the two leaders of our Islamic community commented that, yes, we should all treat everyone with respect and, yes, he was chagrined by some recent reports. But he only wondered how much worse it would be in any other country in the world for any other minority group. And, in fact, in our own country in the 1940s, we did not act with the same level of respect and tolerance that we are showing today. Let us remember that America is not anti-Muslim and not anti-Islam. In fact, the last three military engagements of the United States were for the purpose of defending Muslim people.”