Guilt by association

The tragic death of six Sikhs in suburban Milwaukee sheds light on the ugly ways that bigotry works. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Sikhs have often been the target of hate crimes. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a gas station owner in Arizona, was the first such casualty. He was murdered just four days after 9/11 because, his murderer said, he was “dark-skinned, bearded and wore a turban.”

The hate crimes against Sikhs have continued over the last decade in the United States. Sikh temples have been vandalized.

This is how cultural racism operates: Anyone who bears the markers of the “enemy” must necessarily be guilty. For members of the Sikh community, this bizarre attitude is baffling. Some have gone out of their way to insist that Sikhs are not Muslim and should therefore not be targeted in these ways.

Yet, the horrific murders in Wisconsin should teach us that racism is about the dehumanization of an entire group of people. It is the worst kind of guilt by association.

Wade Michael Page was the leader of a whitepower band named End Apathy, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is even reported to have had a tattoo of 9/11 on his upper right arm.

The context for this crime is the climate of prejudice in the United States that the war on terror has created.

Central to “the war on terror” is the ideology of Islamophobia. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has held hearings hyping the risk of radical Islam here at home. Right-wing politicians such as Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Newt Gingrich have also used reckless rhetoric targeting the Muslim American community.

In U.S. military policy, Islamophobia allows the United States to carry out drone strikes against Muslim men perceived to be terrorists in several countries around the world with impunity. Many victims of these “kill lists” are not terrorists, but innocent people.

Dehumanization and guilt by association enable the United States to kill innocent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Dehumanization and guilt by association enable a killer to gun down worshippers in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Deepa Kumar is associate professor of media studies and Middle Eastern studies at Rutgers University.