“When we dehumanize a people, we then create avenues for remorseless actions,” Dr. Ehsun Mirza said Friday afternoon.

Mirza, a Muslim American, is a critical care doctor at Kent Hospital who has been working against ‘anti-Muslim’ sentiments both before Donald Trump’s Islamophobic remarks and with increased fervor since.

He helped organize an interfaith rally in Providence held Sunday in hopes the public would see the overwhelming majority of Muslims in America not only condemn ISIS, but are law abiding and peaceful citizens. There were nearly 200 people from all religious denominations speaking out against ISIS, violence and hate speech toward Muslims.

Mirza admitted that he is “fed up” with both sides, the radicalization of both Islam as well as the political thought of rising American politicians such as Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate. Trump has suggested that all Muslim Americans carry identification cards, keeping a registry of all Muslims in the country and even offered to ban any and all travel of Muslims into this country.

Mirza said that he, along with “99.9 percent” of the Muslim population condemns ISIS with “every molecule of their being” and they do not represent the Islam faith or tradition. He questions what it would take for people to stop associating the two with one another.

“There is a very small percentage of Muslims whose criminal actions have led to the persecution of the majority of Muslims who are trying to just live their lives,” Mirza said. “We have all become tainted for the actions of a few and we have been down this road before, with the slaves, Jews, communists. You would think in 2015, in one of the greatest nations, we would have seen we need to move away from tagging and isolating people.”

As only one of the more than 2.1 million Muslims living in America, Mirza said the actions of late have been shocking when Muslims, living and abiding by the pledge of allegiance, have been victimized solely for the way they look. He has story after story of his friends being mistreated for appearing to look Muslim.

Although Mirza has not experienced some of the more violent reactions, he says he is beginning to feel the “buzz on the back of his neck” whenever he is in public. He knows that racist rhetoric leads to racist actions.

“This rhetoric is giving people a reason to criminalize innocent people. They are assumed guilty because they look a certain way; those people may not even be Muslim,” Mirza said. “Where is the humanity in that? It’s horrifying that people can be so fearful that they think this is OK behavior. That’s a problem.”

Mirza has been working on many interfaith initiatives to bring awareness and acceptance of the Muslim community. He helped organize a rally this past Sunday that brought faith leaders from across different religions to speak out against this dangerous rhetoric.

Reverend Don Anderson, executive minister for the Rhode Island Council of Churches, is very supportive of interfaith initiatives such as the rally this past weekend and believes that as a country we need to reject this fear mongering and separatist rhetoric.

Anderson said Trump is dangerous because of his “pandering of people’s fear.” He believes this fear stems from two things; one being that the makeup of the American population is changing. Similarly, he argues that most people don’t understand Islam, but are basing their opinions on the smallest population of Muslims.

Anderson said, “For these people it is easy for someone like Donald Trump to manipulate them by playing off this fear.”

Mirza agreed, noting that there are so many that succumb to these beliefs who don’t actually know a Muslim themselves and it’s easy to “vilify” someone you have never encountered.

“It is easy to create a fear from the unknown. You make it into a boogeyman and you use that to divide people,” Mirza said.

Mirza and Anderson were in agreement that diversity has historically been one of America’s greatest strengths.

“We are at our best when we are working together for the greater good, collaborating to see real solutions,” Anderson said. “But, any rhetoric that divides and separates, creates suspicion and distrust undermines what makes our country great; we aren’t working in our own best interests. We can’t make progress in that way and that’s a scary thing.”

He also noted that there are a lot of “unstable” people in this country and giving characters like Trump significance only helps to encourage those individuals to commit acts of violence against others.

Through this coalition Mirza called for “building bridges at a grass roots level” to bring people together for peace to better understand one another. He suggests exchange visits where different faiths come together, in a respectful manner, to try and understand each other.

Anderson said in the past few months he has received many requests from Christian organizations for exchange visits where their members could become part of the discussion, meeting Muslims and even visiting mosques.

“The overwhelming movement is towards peace, to show that the teachings of the Muslim tradition are based in peace and the overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country are peaceful,” Anderson said.

Mirza also believes that Muslims in the community need to be more vocal about their presence, showing off all the good they are doing locally and abroad. Similarly, he says those in the Republican Party should be more vocal when they reject these views.

Mirza believes it will take generations to see a complete turnaround of thought, but believes there is hope yet.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s statements, Mirza has “never experienced such polarity” between people. He says there has been a great divide amongst Americans in response to this racist rhetoric.

“I’m finding out that that average person doesn’t want to see this divide. They just want to live and let live. If there is a silver lining to any of this, it is that it’s brought people, who are typically silent otherwise, out against these political atrocities,” Mirza said. “All of our children need to play together, our families need to eat together for peace. It will be multigenerational, but this will change. I know it will because there is too much goodness around.”