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GREENSBORO - As she watched presidential candidate Barack Obama on television recently, Deonna Sayed took her son's arm and pointed out they both had brown skin.

"I was saying, 'Obama, he's like you,'" Sayed, a 35-year-old American Muslim and stay-at-home mother to five, said of an inspiring moment for her and her son. "I said you have that weird name and he has a weird name, and that's kind of cool. And my 6-year-old son is like, 'Yeah, that's kind of cool.' "

She was reminded of their conversation when former secretary of state Colin Powell endorsed Obama for president earlier this week, at the same time lashing out at those who have wrongly portrayed him as a Muslim - and asking "What if he is?"

Obama is a Christian who was born to a white American mother and a Kenyan father.

"But the really right answer is, 'What if he is?'" Powell said on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? ... This is not the way we should be doing it in America."

Many Muslim Americans cheered. "There was someone finally brave enough to address it head-on," Sayed said. "It is always the elephant in the room."

But others were more matter of fact.

"Where was Colin Powell a few years ago when he was secretary of state?" said Badi Ali, president of the Islamic Center of the Triad. "I have great respect for the man, but these men who we respect should contribute when they have more power and more authority to change. From my heart, I will say thank you. ... But Colin Powell, where have you been?"

Even before Sept. 11, 2001, some Americans were suspicious of the Muslim faith. But when followers of Islam crashed planes in the United States, killing thousands aboard and on the ground, polls showed that the words terrorist and Muslim became synonymous for some.

Obama has had to repeatedly reiterate his Christian upbringing - doubly offensive for people of the faith.

"It's not only the fact people are assuming he is (Muslim) that bothers us," said Hatice Dogan, a 24-year-old Muslim graduate student at Guilford College, "it's also the fact that when he's defending himself, I feel like it puts us down even more because you have to defend what you are not - like it's a bad thing."

Muslims can tick off a list of slights during the campaign: the flap caused by Obama volunteers who did not want two women in traditional head coverings in camera view while the candidate was speaking, and McCain's speech where he said this is a Christian nation, before later clarifying his statements.

Sayed, who wears a head covering, even hesitated to volunteer for the Obama campaign, thinking she would worsen his predicament. But she volunteered anyway.

"We don't want to bring any negative attention to the campaign because there are so many rumors ... even that we put him in this position so we could take over the United States," Sayed said.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com