DemonizingMuslims will ultimately just hurt us all

so, we continue to struggle even with the terminology we use to distinguish between everydayMuslims and radicalized terrorists.

This is particularly distressing given that language and communication are so crucial to winning what is in the long term an ideological war. None too soon, we’re beginning to hear reasonable voices rise above the din of nationalistic jargon.

One such voice belongs to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. In his finest debate hour, Graham issued a passionate apology to Muslims for Donald Trump, who has said among other things that we need a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

“To all of ourMuslim friends throughout the world, like the King of Jordan and the President of Egypt, I amsorry.” said Graham. “He does not represent us.”

Graham then thanked Muslim Americans for their military service to our country. Bravo.

These sentiments are crucial not only to civility but also to national security. Anti-Muslim rhetoric merely buoys the terrorist narrative that the U.S. is the enemy of Islam. Thus, demonizing or marginalizingMuslims leads not to greater safety but to greater numbers of recruits.

It is also rude and un-American.

We seem to have no trouble demanding that moderateMuslims condemn the radicals, but we’re less than impressive when it comes to moderate Americans taking a stand against our own extremists. It should be viewed as an act of patriotism, something the individual citizen can do.

Thus, I had hoped the president might call on Americans to do their part and issue a call to specific action. As I imagined it, he would have said something like: “I’m calling on all America’s mayors, of towns and cities large and small, to join the war on terror by hosting a public forum in your community bringing Muslims and non-Muslims together for conversation. The operating principle should be that communication is key to understanding and that understanding is central to peaceful coexistence and a better future.” Something like that. There are already several models available for replication. If blacks and whites can pull this off in places like South Carolina and Mississippi, then surelyMuslims, Christians, blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians can do it in Detroit or Los Angeles.

The Village Square, begun several years ago in Tallahassee, Florida, and now in a few other cities, brings citizens together to a bipartisan, formal debate on issues crucial to the community.

These approaches may seem like tiny pebbles tossed into a sea of distrust and fear, but they’ve proved effective often enough that they’re worth a try. Even pebbles cause ripples, and words have a way of spreading.