#sikhophobia

[zoe-the-astromaniac]

That's my point. You've made it clear that you live in a place densely populated with Sikhs. Second to majority as you mentioned. I don't. Result is the only other sikh in my class wears a cap ALL. THE. TIME. INCLUDING INDOORS. Because since 2020, which saw a major spike in sikhophobia, kids think it's perfectly fine to call him a khalistani for no reason at all. This dude has never presented a political opinion, let alone an extreme separatist one. Literally I cannot see where they were coming from except for just the fact that he's a Sikh but it's genuinely devastating to see him cover his pagdi every single day without fail. I'm lucky I don't face the same cuz well I'm a woman and I don't look Sikh.

But ok that's an isolated incident, if I talk of why exactly this started happening in 2020 it's because that's the stuff those kids heard their parents say at home because that was the fucking response to the farmers' protest, something that had absolutely nothing to do with religion. Religion was dragged into the debate because a majority of those farmers were sikh and their demands that had NOTHING to do with a separatist movement got brushed off as khalistani terrorism. This was around the time when Modi made his visit to Punjab or attempted to (it was a pretty big deal, it was all over the news), his route had protestors on it and man the reaction supporters of the party had to it? Literally one Google search away. There's literal MLA's of the party talking of a repeat of the '84 genocide. MLAs. And it's these very people who call Sikhism a sect of Hinduism which is an entirely different load of horse crap. But it's just the fact that they have thee audacity to say that but then a moment a Sikh person says something they don't like (it doesn't even have to be related to religion, in fat bonus points if it ain't) that person becomes a khalistani.

This isn't woke, acknowledging that yes, a minority community does face marginalisation (big shocker) is basic fucking decency. Your reaction to this is exactly like the reaction of a white person being told that they might be racist. 'What?! I have black friends. They get treated equally.'

It's hard for people to hear that their community might be marginalising another, especially if they don't do it personally because it makes them feel attacked. But the matter of truth is that your reaction is absolutely not how a decent person responds to the idea of someone being oppressed. You usually wait to get educated on the topic before you form an opinion on it and especially before you mock someone else's pian over it. Also you need to realise for the future that if you don't see a certain problem in the society around you doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it could very well mean that you are just lucky enough to not encounter. This applies to all contexts.

I usually wouldn't pester a kid but I needed you to hear this because your opinion could potentially hurt someone and over the internet, they wouldn't know you're a kid (like I didn't when I sent the previous ask) and I would hate for someone to form a bad opinion of you over it. Everything I've told you isn't guaranteed to change your opinion over the matter, in fact I doubt it will, but atleast after this whatever opinion you hold, no matter how hurtful, will be an educated opinion and you ought to take responsibility for it because 14, no matter how young, is still enough age to tell right and wrong apart. That's all I have to say to you and I won't be sending asks again.

Firstly, the hat incident you refer to, as devastating as it is, was practically impossible for any Haryanvi/Punjabi to relate to, so please don’t blame me for not seeing what you were referring to. Its like being from Arkansas but then shouting at a Californian for not seeing the racism.

Secondly, where’s this incident happening? Maybe you’re right, its my lack of knowledge and education on the issue, so please tell me as to atleast what state this is so I can make a decent, dedicated post on the issue if I see the arising need. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but can you give me the details so I know what I’m looking into here?

As of the farmer’s protest, I think you are forgetting a major, and I mean very major factor that lead to the issue being labeled as Khalistan: there were khalistanis involved. How it is that you managed to ignore the bit about how khalistani outfit sikhs for justice started propagating it for ulterior motives, another one made toolkit for it, or when Sikh extremists beheaded a lower caste Sikh over the disrespect of the book is beyond me.

How it is that you say that it doesn’t have seperatist influence is astounding. Religious influence of sikhism? Not. Khalistani influence? Totally.

Offcourse, I’m not saying that the issue WASN’T about farmer’s rights and all, most of it prolly was, but lets not act like it wasn’t hijacked for ulterior motives by various anti India groups. The toolkit leaking and the pro seperatism handles suddenly and simultaneously supporting the cause says it all.

I don’t think everyone involved, or for that matter everyone who wasn’t proven guilty deserved to be shunned as Khalistani, but the thing is, if there was a pro muslim movement going on that got hijacked by likes of the now gone PFI, no one would care how it started or what the beginning cause was. Or am I wrong?

That’s just how the it works, I’m not trying to sound ignorant, I’m trying to say this rationally so please think about this for once, but if one is leading a cause and sees it getting infested by some other reason, its only his/her job to make sure that same doesn’t get to represent the movement. The protesting farmers sat by and watched as a religious flag was put on in front of the red fort, what were people expecting? NOT being labelled religious fundamentalists? (Once again clearing the fact that I don’t believe the sikh community deserve a blame for this. Shitheads exist in every religion.)

The BJP MLA bit? Yeah, pretty sad if I’m being honest. I won’t equate it to being the same as persecution at a central level, because of my own experiences, but I’ve said once before on my main that I feel like BJP has the worst, And I mean THE WORST lot when it comes to local leaders. Leave Sikhophobia, I won’t even put Rape and Genocide supporting above them. They’ve even shit talked Budhhists and demanded Hindu women to be baby making machines.

Even a few CMs have proven to be mildly (albeit not anywhere NEAR as much of asshats as the MLAs) problematic if I remember. The only way I can sleep at night is knowing that people like these will never be in power, because they can only run their mouths, not the country. Even the Higher ups at NDA seem to be aware of that. Believe me, if someone like that ever comes to hold a prominent position, I’ll book both of us a one way ticket to the nopetopia.

All in all, while I feel like I can’t be blamed for not seeing the issue because actual headlines of Sikh persecution are unseen around here, because maybe its rather remote or unheard of on both national and local level for me, I’m always open to know more so that I know what kind of issues deserve light and to be brought to mainstream.

So please, do tell me more. I want to be aware of the whole cause and be of help if the situation is for real that dire.

PS I’m not a kid🗿

[theamericanbazaar]

Passenger next to sleeping Sikh man posts video on YouTube, terms it ‘flying with Bin Laden’

Passenger next to sleeping Sikh man posts video on YouTube, terms it ‘flying with Bin Laden’

Darshan Singh didn’t speak to his co-passenger on the Jet Blue flight. (more…)

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[uffkhudaya]

Some members of the Sikh community have started a "Thank you, Gap" campaign in order to show their appreciation for the inclusion of a Sikh model. A letter to the company says, "By placing a Sikh model in prominent locations on billboards, direct mail advertising and digital channels, you have raised the profile of Sikhs in ways the community couldn’t have accomplished with its limited resources. The community has tremendously benefitted from the attention it has received through Gap’s marketing campaign."

GAP responds to racist graffiti, Sikhs respond back 

I'm posting this, not because I'm in awe of GAP, but of the response. So many people say, "if you are feeling marginalized/targeted/whatever, you should educate people about yourselves, put yourselves out there". No. No. That response: "we can't do this because of our limited resources" is on point. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Yesterday, Ishwar Singh, president of the Sikh Society of Central Florida, became the first Sikh to speak at a Republican National Convention when he was invited to deliver the invocation ... and Religious Right activists were predictably concerned:

A Sikh will pray tonight at RNC. Christians should be respectful, but not bow their heads. Praying to a different god.

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) August 29, 2012

Fischer was not alone, as Janet Mefferd also voiced her concerns that people "who don't have the slightest similarity to us" are being allowed to pray at the convention ... and that includes Mitt Romney:

This adds new spin to my view of what's going on at the RNC right now because you still hear a little bit of talk God here and there, but it's different. When Mitt Romney talks about God, he's not talking about our God and he has yet to give his speech yet.

But we now have a party that is allowing people to pray at the Republican National Convention who don't have the slightest similarity to us, when it comes to our view of God, at all. At all.

h/t: Kyle Mantyla at RWW

[justinspoliticalcorner]

A very solid piece from The Nation on Islamophobia and Sikhophobia.

The tragedy of the shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, is enormous. Six innocent people were gunned down in a Sikh temple by a white supremacist—but they weren’t innocent because they were Sikh, they were innocent because, well, they were innocent! Had Wade Michael Page walked into a mosque and begun shooting Muslims, the victims of his rampage would have been no more deserving of death.

It’s true that we don’t yet know Page’s precise motivations, but in all likelihood it wasn’t Sikhophobia, a term barely known in the United States. It was Islamophobia. That’s why to say that Page made a “mistake” in targeting Sikhs, as many have reported, or that Sikhs are “unfairly” targeted as Muslims, as CNN stated, is to imply that it would be “correct” to attack Muslims. Well, it’s not, and even if this is an error embedded in the routine carelessness of cable news, we need to be attentive to the implications.

Over the last few days, there has been a lot of media coverage about the Sikh religion and its origins and practices. Knowledge is always welcome over ignorance, but what we really need to educate ourselves about is the way racism operates in this country and its deadly character. The facts are not consoling. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the extreme right wing grew “explosively” in 2011 and for the third year in a row. The SPLC now tracks 1,018 hate groups, up from 602 in 2000, the year that Page is reported to have appeared on the Neo-Nazi scene. The number of hate groups, in other words, has almost doubled in the last twelve years, and that growth has accelerated since the election of Obama. The targets have also expanded. White supremacists have always been obsessed with Jews, blacks and the LGBT community as their objects of hate. And ten years ago, Jews and blacks were Page’s villains, according to Pete Simi, who interviewed him in 2001. But things have changed over this past decade. What continues to be underappreciated is how the hatred of Muslims has become a major motivating and mobilizing force in this putrid scene.

But Islamophobia is real. Not only does it exist but it’s an increasingly toxic part of the political discourse of this country. To think that the compulsive hatred and fear of Muslims is reserved for the extreme right is to wall oneself off from how mainstream conservative discourse participates in this paranoid obsession that the old America is being nefariously and surreptitiously taken away from them. At bottom, this is an anxiety about the loss of privileges and power, quite likely related though not exclusively driven by downward economic mobility. (The New York Times offered the suggestive detail that property Page owned in North Carolina was foreclosed on in January.) Whatever the causes, the form that this hatred takes is cultural, and Muslims, Mexicans, non-white immigrants, really anyone who isn’t “American” by the most conservative definition becomes suspect.

Still, it is Muslims who are now some of the biggest villains in this story of decline, as the well-funded Islamophobic network pushes the paranoid fantasy that Sharia law is about to usurp the constitution or, even more simply, that Islam is not a religion at all but a “cult.” It has yet to be determined if there is any connection, but a mosque in Joplin, Missouri was burned to the ground the day after the Oak Creek shooting. In this climate, anyway, mosques are not seen as American places of worship but as temporary hotels for perpetual foreigners and fiery incubators for terrorism. But the statistics show another story. As reported by Liz Goodwin at Yahoo! News, “Between 1980 and 2001, non-Islamic American extremists carried out about two-thirds of all terrorism in the United States, according to FBI statistics cited by the Council on Foreign Relations. Between 2002 and 2005, that figure jumped to 95 percent. In the ten years following 2001, only 6 percent of terrorist acts in America have been the work of Islamic extremists.”

Yet Islamophobia is not solely the domain of the extreme right wing. It’s part of the Republican campaign for president. One of Mitt Romney’s foreign policy advisers is Walid Phares, part of the active anti-Muslim network. Michele Bachmann sent a letter urging the Justice Department to investigate Hillary Clinton’s adviser Huma Abedin, among others, for “the deep penetration in the halls of our United States government” by the Muslim Brotherhood. Peter King held show trials falsely accusing Muslim Americans of radicalization and sedition. And one in three Republicans still believes Obama is a Muslim. Oh, brother!

And then there’s Michael Bloomberg. Under his watch, the NYPD has been engaged in a massive spying campaign against New York’s Muslim American community that included compiling huge amounts of information on ordinary Muslims going about their regular activities at school, on the streets, while shopping, eating and praying.

h/t: Moustafa Bayoumi at The Nation