From the President: "This is not who we are" ***Barack Obama Group***
I (and many others, of course!) received this email this morning from the President. It's a Democratic fundraising email, but that's kind of beside the point, IMHO. Just read it and see for yourself!
Over the course of my time on the national stage, a lot has been said about the fact that a guy with a name like Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President of the United States. And over the years, because of my background, I've heard questions about my religion, my place of birth, even whether or not I love this country.
I always dismissed that kind of talk, but I've also learned to listen closely when a conversation starts to lean on fear and ignorance.
So I pay attention when I hear the Republican frontrunner for president call for a ban on Muslims entering this country. And when their other candidates say we should only admit Christian refugees, not Muslims, or that there should be a religious test to determine which people fleeing a war-torn country can enter ours.
That's not not who we are.
While just about every nation in the world opens their doors to immigrants, in America we understand that a facet of our national identity stems from the fact that we are a country born of immigrants. It's part of what makes us exceptional. We celebrate this heritage, as an immigrant nation, but also recognize that we haven't always lived up to our own ideals. There have been times in our history when we have not been as welcoming or tolerant as we should have been. I want to make sure that we don't allow today to be another one of those chapters in American history that we look back on knowing that we could have done better.
Bolding mine.
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