Shooter’s actions cannot and do not speak for US
WASHINGTON: Sri Srinivasan’s family moved to Kansas when he was only four. He grew up a basketball fanatic, going to the same high school as a future star of the sport. And eventually went on to become the first Indian-American judge of a court of appeals, roughly like India’s high court, and was a top contender for a vacancy that fell open on the US Supreme Court bench in 2016, which would have been historic in many ways — as the first Indian-American, the first Asian-American and the first Hindu American named justice to the highest court in the country.
Judge Srinivasan, as he is called, grew up in Lawrence, a 30-minute drive from Olathe, where an apparently inebriated US navy veteran killed Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an IT engineer from Hyderabad, past Wednesday mistaking him for a middle easterner, and telling him to “get out of my country”. Investigators are still trying to determine the exact motives of the shooter, Adam Purinton, but he will not be the first American to feel that way about people from the middle east, specially after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But does the shooting make the US less of a destination for anyone with dreams of making it as big as Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO from Hyderabad, Sunder Pichai, Google CEO from further south Chennai, or Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems from Delhi? Less safe? After all, how could a drink at a bar with a colleague after work end so badly?
Is Donald Trump’s America any less safe? While condemning the killings, the White House has dismissed any links to the president’s rhetorics as has been suggested by some, but there are worries and concerns arising out of a surge in ethnic, religious and racial tensions in the aftermath of hi selection. But P ur int on can not, and does not speak for Kansas or the US. Judge Srinivasan has never complained about racial slights he or his family might have faced growing up in Kansas and local news publications had covered his elevation to the appeals court and his possible move to the Supreme Court with unrestrained pride. He was one of them, and they wanted to celebrate his achievements as they would of anyone else. He might have, as all immigrants, faced stereotyping — Indians are mocked, often by Indian comics — for nodding their head excessively as they listen; their accent, and they may have all faced one time or another intended or unintended slights.
Things can get worse, and have gotten worse for some. Balbir Singh Sandhu became the first victim of the backlash after the Sept 11 attack. He was shot dead at his gas station in Arizona by a man who mistook him for a middle easterner. Six men and women were gunned down by a white supremacist in an attack on a Wisconsin gurudwara in 2013. But Sandhu’s relatives chose to stay, and so have those of Wisconsin victims.
And it may not be pointed out to those feeling uncertain, don’t forget Ian Grillot, the Kansas man who was shot by Purinton trying to save Kuchibhotla and his colleague Madasani Alok . “No, it’s not like that,” Grillot said about being hailed as a hero. “I was just doing what anyone should have done for another human being. It’s not about where he was from or his ethnicity. We’re all humans. I just felt I did what was naturally right to do.” His sister has said he wishes he could have done more. It is reasonable to feel unsafe and insecure after every such incident, but, as a young immigrant from India said, “People back home must realise US is no less safe today than it was yesterday or the day before, or tomorrow.”