Muslim UCF Students Combat Hate With Peace
A dirty look, a glare, people muttering under their breath. Imagine all of this happening simply because you’re Muslim or you’re wearing a hijab.
According to the Pew Research Center, there are 1.6 billion Muslim citizens around the world, which makes up 23 percent of the world’s population. Additionally, 13.7 percent of all religious-based hate crimes in 2013 were motivated by anti-Muslim bias, according to the FBI’s hate crime statistics.
That bias has hit close to home for some UCF students.
For Amirah Mathin, a sophomore biomedical sciences major, the discrimination hit while she was helping a man involved in a vehicle collision during her time as an EMT. As she was extracting the man from the vehicle, he asked not to be touched by her and threw in a racial slur or two about her hijab, or head scarf.
Mathin, raised Muslim, actually went to a Catholic high school because of its reputation, and when she began to wear her hijab three years ago, no one really said anything negative toward her.
Source: www.centralfloridafuture.com