“Hate crimes are designed to hurt an entire group of people and therefore should receive extra attention,” said CAIR-Chicago Communications Intern, Nicholas Short.

Thank you for printing your Sept. 10 article “Survey: Muslims face a lot of bias,” featuring a Pew Research Center study on growing tolerance by Americans toward Muslims. This piece brings awareness to the fact that Muslims all over America have often been victims of discrimination.

I was disappointed that the letters you chose to run in response to your Aug. 22 editorial “The burquini ban” expressed an extremely inaccurate portrayal of Islam. Sharia actually condemns forced marriages and so-called “honor killings.”

I was surprised that your article on Jose Flores, who described himself as a Christian priest after hijacking a jetliner, does not call Flores a terrorist (“Police nab jet hijacker in Mexico,” Sept. 10, 2009).

I enjoyed reading “Faithfully delicious,” about Yvonne Maffei, a Muslim of Puerto Rican and Sicilian heritage who blogs about halal cooking. The article on Maffei and her husband, who is of Mexican and Italian heritage, reflects the ethnic diversity among American Muslims.

Regarding reader Keyvan Rafii’s inflammatory comments about what he called the “violent backwardness” and “dysfunction” of the Middle East, I would like to point out that dysfunction is not native to the Middle East. In many cases, dysfunctional leadership was directly transplanted in the Middle East by the West and continues to be enabled by the United States.

I was pleasantly surprised to note the level of perception and nuance in Mike Thomas’s column about Fathima Rifqa Bary (“Anti-Muslim bias obvious in girl’s case,” Orlando Sentinel, Sunday).

Thank you for printing “Ramadan Reflections,” which features firsthand accounts by Muslim college students celebrating Ramadan in the United States.

Thank you for the August 19 article, “Soldier’s death ‘killed all of us.’” The story of the tragic death of Illinois Guardsman Simone Robinson gives readers a more detailed look into how our wars overseas inflict so much pain on not only the people in Iraq and Afghanistan, but right here at home.

I was pleasantly surprised to read the Daily Herald article by Ruben Navarrette, “Latinos know profiling all too well”. (08/11/2009) I can’t remember the last time I read a Latino point-of-view on discrimination.