Muslim football players on Trump: 'We can’t have this ignorance in office'

Isa Abdul-Quddus and Ameer Abdullah are Muslims who play football for the Detroit Lions, and they are not amused with Donald Trump’s proposed policy of stopping all Muslim immigration to the United States.

Abdul-Quddus and Abdullah seem to know they have a rare opportunity to speak out, and they did just that, describing to The Detroit News how damaging these comments from someone with such a large platform can be for the Muslim community.

“That’s the scary part,” Abdul-Quddus said. “I’m just hoping that either he can change his mindset to be a bit more open-minded, or people just realize we can’t have this ignorance in office.”

Abdul-Quddus elaborated on why he wasn’t surprised that Trump said such inflammatory things, saying they’re just to bring attention to his campaign. And:

“It was one of them things that I kind of look at the person before I look at the comment,” Abdul-Quddus said. “Because Trump says a lot of things for shock value to like get people to hear him and listen to him and stuff and just to put his face in public.

“So, I don’t really feel much disrespect when he said that because he already said he wanted to label us. He wanted to have every (Muslim) have an ID and everything, so I just kind of chalk it up as a guy that’s pretty ignorant.”

Abdul-Quddus said he wouldn’t be voting for Trump, while Abdullah said that he does not like to get involved in politics, though he expressed disappointment in Trump’s followers. He was more philosophical, saying he hopes more people will educate themselves before rushing to judge other people or ideas.

“You can’t control everyone. All you can do is pray for them and hope that one day they’ll realize that everyone’s just people. You’ve got to love everyone; you’ve got to respect everyone,” he said.

Abdul-Quddus and Abdullah remarks came after fellow Muslim athletes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Muhammad Ali both blasted Trump for his remarks. Earlier in the week, after President Barack Obama said during a speech that many of our sports heroes were Muslim, Trump had tweeted that he couldn’t name any Muslim athletes, despite having won an award named after Muhammad Ali—perhaps the most famous Muslim athlete in history—in 2007.

David Matthews operates the Wayback Machine on Fusion.net—hop on. Got a tip? Email him: [email protected]