The first Muslims who came to the United States came here as African slaves. In the mid-19th century, Muslims emigrated from soon-to-be Syria and Lebanon and settled into places like Ohio and Michigan. They arrived approximately the same time as many Jews from Eastern Europe, and just a few decades after many Catholics moved from Ireland.

And yet discussions about Muslims in the United States are not the same as most discussions of Catholics or Jews or other religious minorities. It has been about two weeks since the Orlando shooting. These kinds of events seem to serve as the unspoken backstory for public comments by politicians and articles in the media. Muslims, whether they’ve been in the U.S. for generations or for just a few years (whatever their race and whether they’re practicing or not), are often considered (in mass) related to terrorism.

This omission has visible consequences. Donald Trump suggests that all Muslim immigration to the U.S. be banned. Congress last year moved to halt assistance and resettlement for refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq. Communities from Houston to Tampa to Omaha report threats and defacement of mosques. Students experience Islamophobia on their campuses. Passengers refuse to get on flights with people who look Muslim. It’s easy to wave away anti-Muslim sentiment with rhetoric about security and radicalization, as almost all the GOP presidential candidates have done. But the backlash against Muslims isn’t a temporary or limited flare-up. No matter how "American", Muslims are largely seen as "other" in the United States.

It is popular opinion that Muslims are fundamentally not American, or need to prove themselves to be American; this is the latent idea lurking in most calls for Muslims to speak out, do some self-searching, or acknowledge that ISIS also draws from Islamic texts. It is the basis for rejecting Muslim refugees, no matter how deftly politicians try to hide behind the excuse of “security.” And it is the dog whistle behind rhetoric from Trump, Cruz, and others—Americans should fear Muslims, no matter how diverse and radically different from ISIS most members of that group may be.

Here are three of the most pervasive myths and falsehoods surrounding Islam and the "war on terror."

1. "We have to use the phrase 'Radical Islamic Terrorism' to effectively beat ISIS." No. The majority of the world’s billion-and-a-half Muslims are not ISIS supporters, nor sympathizers, and it is also true, of course, that most of ISIS’s victims are Muslim. Only Islam can truly defeat this movement. One reason Obama is cautious in using heated or overly generalized rhetoric is that he would like to avoid a situation in which ordinary Muslims come to believe that the West despises their religion. It is the goal of ISIS to convince non-radicalized Muslims that there is no space for them in the West. Trump and Cruz are helping ISIS make this case; Obama, and the national-security apparatus of the United States, are not interested in doing this.

2. "Muslims are not fighting terrorism." This is patently false. More than that, the statistics to debunk this theory are embarrassingly easy to find. "I would say this to the Muslims, and in the United States also...when they see trouble, they have to report it," Trump said, "and they're not reporting it. They're absolutely not reporting it. And that's a big problem." Trump makes this remark during his "yuuge" speech on Orlando and terrorism. The statistics are clear; in the U.S., Muslim communities have been extraordinarily forthcoming with the police in terrorism cases. In a study from the University of Maryland, Muslim community members provided critical information in two out of every five disrupted plots between 2001 and 2011. Similar studies have proven the same thing. It's even been reported that one of the folks to call the FBI concerning Omar Mateen was a fellow Muslim: a member of Mateen's mosque, as a matter of fact.

3. "Muslims don't assimilate well in the U.S." This is also an easily debunked falsehood. Several studies confirm that Muslim Americans want to have an American identity and think that doing so is achievable. A study conducted in 2011 by Pew Research found that "56 percent of Muslim Americans said that most Muslims coming to the United States today want to adopt American customs and ways of life." Similar to Christian Americans, most Muslims want to join American culture while still preserving their religious identity.

Muslims are not a homogeneous block of people. There is no "the Muslims." They're a part of this country as much as any other group or individual. ISIS won't be stopped easily, though one piece of our arsenal needs to be seeing Muslims as part of our communities, as allies, not enemies; as "us" and not "them."