With anti-Muslim sentiment on the rise, Muhammad Ali issues a strong response.
Muhammad Ali is a legend.
Photo via AFP/Getty Images.
He's legendary for his incredible boxing skill, his civil rights activism, and his poetically provocative quotes on boxing, on life, and on human rights.
Agree or disagree with his opinion, you can't deny that Ali has never been afraid to stand up for what he believes in, especially when it comes to his religion.
"I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world," Ali writes in a statement.
In the letter, Ali writes about the cost of painting Islam as a religion of violence, calling on all Muslims to "stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda." That misrepresentation, he says, prevents people from learning about Islam the same way people learn about Christianity or Judaism.
Ali's letter comes in response to the recent uptick in violent cases of vandalism against Muslims across America (such as a severed pig's head left at a Philadelphia mosque), which themselves are likely responses to the recent murders in San Bernardino, California, and the ISIS attacks in Paris.
This retaliation and fear of innocent Muslims is being stoked and encouraged by presidential candidates, perhaps most explicitly by GOP candidate Donald Trump.
Though Ali never names Trump specifically in his statement, it's no coincidence that the letter arrived on the heels of Trump claiming not to know of any Muslim athletes.
Despite the fact that Trump has met Ali before.
Donald Trump presents Muhammad Ali with United Cerebral Palsy's Humanitarian Award in 2001. Photo by George De Sota/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
Ali's statement is a voice of reason in an election season dominated by wildly bigoted rhetoric.
In his statement, Ali calls on political leaders to use their power to clarify and correct misconceptions of Islam as they see them:
"Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people's views on what Islam really is."
The millions of Muslims worldwide who aren't affiliated with extremist groups shouldn't have to prove that their religion isn't violent any more than all Christians should have to defend their religion when Christian terrorists kill people at women's health clinics.
Actions speak loudly, but words have their own power — if anyone knows how true that is, it's Muhammed Ali.
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.