Before Sunday’s game against the Detroit Lions, the Green Bay Packers asked their fans to observe a moment of silence to honor the victims of Friday’s deadly shooting in Paris.
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While many did, one fan took advantage of the quiet moment to yell out something obnoxious.
Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images.
“Muslims suck,” is what many heard, according to a report in The Washington Post. Including Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgers was asked to respond to the comment after the game, and respond eloquently he did.
“I must admit I was very disappointed with whoever the fan was who made a comment,” Rodgers said.
“I thought it was really inappropriate during the moment of silence. It’s that kind of prejudicial ideology that I think puts us in the position that we’re in today as a world.”
Rodgers is right to call out the fan’s bigotry, and it’s a lesson much of the world could stand to hear right now.
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Following the attacks, talk of tightening — or even closing — state and national borders in Western countries to refugees from the Middle East has increased, even though many of those refugees are fleeing the exact same people who committed the horrible act of violence in Paris last weekend.
Some have even gone as far as to suggest that the United States should focus on admitting Christian — not Muslim — refugees.
Good guys and bad guys can’t be sorted by their religion.
Radical extremists come from all religions and all nationalities and threaten people of all religions and all nationalities — as last week’s far-less-heralded, but similarly deadly bombing in Beirut makes abundantly clear. Presenting the current conflict as a clash of religions or civilizations only makes it easier for them to victimize more of the world’s most vulnerable people.
That’s why Rodgers’ comments are an important wake-up call.
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The only way to defeat the bad guys is by standing together. Not apart.
