President Barack Obama on Monday hosted traditional Iftar dinner for Muslim Americans in the East Room of the White House.
Obama sends greetings to Muslims around the world and said that Americans stand united in repudiating the targeting of any religious or ethnic groups he marked Islam’s holy month of Ramadan. .
“We affirm that whatever our faith, we’re all one family,” Obama said at the East Room dinner attended by about 40 members of the diplomatic community and a few members of Congress.
More than a few young dinner guests, includes Samantha Elauf, 17 who went to the Supreme Court to defend her right to wear a hijab. In 2008, Samantha was denied for a sales job at an Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after
wearing a hijab or headscarf to the interview.
“She was determined to defend the right to wear a hijab – to have the same opportunities as everybody else,” Obama said. “She went all the way to the Supreme Court – which I didn’t do at her age – and she won.”
Obama recounted the killings of three young Muslims on Feb. 10 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the nine black church members killed by a white man last week in Charleston church, South Carolina.
“As Americans, we insist that nobody should be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, who they love, how they worship,” he said. “We stand united against these hateful acts.”