NEW YORK – The worldwide famous Irish-American actor George Clooney has come out swinging at the American President Donald Trump and how he treats Muslims and other American minorities, Irish Central reported on October 13.
Trump was dealing in fear, Clooney said during his speech at Variety Magazine’s “Power of Women” event in Los Angeles: “Fear of Muslims. Fear of immigrants. Fear of minorities. Fear of strong women.”
“And because our government needs us to be afraid, the question is, are we really scared of all the things that actually make America great? And if the answer is yes, then we’ll have history to answer to. Because these are the ideas that will define us for generations,” he expressed.
Clooney warned that the anti-Muslim policy would cause a backlash; “when you call an entire religion your enemy, you might very well make an enemy out of an entire religion.
“When you tell a whole race of people that you value them less, you can’t be surprised when they question your values. When you tell women that coming forward to testify about their abuse is a joke, don’t be shocked when they’re standing on your lawn, laughing on November 7,” Clooney said, referring to the day after the midterm elections.
He continued, “After all the jokes, and insults, and reality show frenzy, what will be remembered, what will stand the test of time, is holding responsible these wolves in wolves’ clothing.”
Clooney praised honoree Emma Gonzalez who led the fight to restrict guns after the school massacre in Parkland, Florida.
“She made us listen to her heart. A heart that believes that we as a country can be so much better. A heart that called for adults to act like adults so children don’t have to,” he said.
According to leading American activists, American Muslims are more vulnerable to bigotry and Islamophobia as a result of Trump’s policies than they were after the 9/11 attacks.
“It’s not just Americans Muslims [who feel anxious],” Ibrahim Hooper, a founder of the Council On American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told The Independent. “We have seen white supremacists emboldened under Trump.”
Hooper said that minority communities in the USA had been deeply dismayed by Trump’s actions, including his Muslim travel ban and his administration’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Between January and September 2017, CAIR recorded 1,656 so-called “bias incidents” and 195 hate crimes against Muslims in the USA. That represented a 9% increase in bias incidents and a 20% rise in hate crimes compared to 2016.