Racial and religious profiling remains a legacy of 9/11 — one we must end
Americans from Muslim, Arab, Sikh, South Asian and other communities were suddenly subject to a torrent of suspicion and hate after 9/11, and that suspicion has been institutionalized by discriminatory government profiling and policies. Read the opinion article from Religion News Service here.
In this Aug. 19, 2016, file photo, Rana Singh Sodhi kneels near his service station in Mesa, Arizona, next to a memorial for his brother, Balbir Singh Sodhi, who was murdered in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh American, was killed at his Arizona gas station four days after the Sept. 11 attacks by a man who announced he was “going to go out and shoot some towel-heads” and mistook him for an Arab Muslim. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Sat Hari Singh — a Sikh who keeps his beard and turban — became a hero.
A train operator for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York City, Singh made a snap decision to drive his train away from the city as soon as he saw smoke billowing into the Fulton Street Station. In the aftermath of the attacks, he was recognized by the MTA as a “hero of 9/11.”
But weeks later, his employer instituted a “brand or segregate” policy, requiring individuals such as Singh to pin the MTA’s logo on their religious head coverings. Overnight, he went from a hero to a suspect, and it took years of litigation to reverse the discriminatory policy.