Sikhs, Muslims join against trolls and discrimination
REPORTS OF BULLYING AND VANDALISM AGAINST THEM HAVE RISEN IN RECENT WEEKS
Pardeep Kaleka spent several days after 9/11 at his father’s South Milwaukee gas station, fearing that his family would be targeted by people who assumed they were Muslim. No, Kaleka explained on behalf of his father, who wore a turban and beard and spoke only in broken English, the family was Sikh, a Southeast Asian religion based on equality and unrelated to Islam.
But amid a new wave of anti-Islamic sentiment since the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Kaleka is vowing to take a different approach.
“For us, it does not matter who they’re targeting,” said Kaleka, a former Milwaukee police officer and teacher whose father was one of six people killed in 2012 when a white supremacist opened fire at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. “This time we cannot differentiate ourselves. When hate rhetoric is being spewed we cannot be on the sidelines.”
Across the US, Sikhs and Muslims are banding together to defend their respective religions. Someone bent on harming Muslims wouldn’t understand the distinction between the two faiths, they say, and both deserve to live in peace.
Decisive action
So they plan educational sessions and rallies. They successfully pushed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to track hate crimes against Sikhs. They speak to lawmakers and support each other’s legal actions, including a lawsuit filed over a New York City police surveillance programme targeting New Jersey Muslims. “We are in this fight together,” said Gurjot Kaur, a senior staff attorney at The Sikh Coalition, founded the night of September 11.
Sikhism, a monotheistic faith, was founded more than 500 years ago in Southeast Asia and has roughly 27 million followers worldwide, most of them in India.
There are more than 500,000 Sikhs in the US. Male followers usually wear turbans, which are considered sacred, and refrain from shaving their beards.
Reports of bullying, harassment and vandalism against Sikhs have risen in recent weeks. Last week, a Sikh temple in Orange County, California, was vandalised, as was a truck in the parking lot by someone who misspelled the word “Islam” and made an obscene reference to Daesh.
For most Sikhs, much of the backlash has been frequent stares or comments and occasional online insults. Former NCAA basketball player Darsh Singh said he has heard insults throughout his life, including when someone recently yelled “Osama!” at him as he was crossing a street in Phoenix.
Then last week, a photo making the rounds on Facebook showed the former Trinity University basketball player — the first turbaned Sikh to play in the NCAA — with the caption: “Nobody wants to guard Mohammad, he’s too explosive.” A friend came to his defence with a post saying, “Do the world a favour and educate yourself”.
This time we cannot differentiate ourselves. When hate rhetoric is being spewed we cannot be on the sidelines.”
Pardeep Kaleka
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Former police officer
‘More difficult’
Rajinder Singh Mago, community outreach director at the Sikh Religious Society of Chicago, said it’s more difficult for Sikh schoolchildren who sometimes are bullied.
“Ninety-nine per cent of Americans are good ... then that one person who just came out of a tavern after a few beers, you don’t know what he’s thinking at that point,” Mago said.