Young Sikhs still struggle with post-Sept. 11 discrimination
Such attacks can be particularly hard on young Sikhs, who face bullying by classmates who try to yank off their turbans or mock them as ‘Osama’s nephew’ or ‘Saddam Hussein.’ Read the article from AP and Religion News Service here.
Raghuvinder Singh, right, greets a child while helping to serve food after a Sikh worship service at a gurdwara in Glen Rock, New Jersey, on Aug. 15, 2021. Baba Punjab Singh, a Sikh priest visiting from India, was shot in the head by a white supremacist Army veteran in Wisconsin in 2012, and left partially paralyzed. He died from his wounds in 2020. Over seven years, the priest’s son, Raghuvinder Singh, split his time between caring for his father in Oak Creek and working in Glen Rock, New Jersey, as assistant priest at a gurdwara there. Raghuvinder said the greatest lesson his father taught him was how to embody “chardi kala,” which calls for steadfast optimism in the face of oppression. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Sikh entrepreneur Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed at his Arizona gas station four days after the Sept. 11 attacks by a man who declared he was “going to go out and shoot some towel-heads” and mistook him for an Arab Muslim.
Young Sikh Americans still struggle a generation later with the discrimination that 9/11 unleashed against their elders and them, ranging from school bullying to racial profiling to hate crimes — especially against males, who typically wear beards and turbans to demonstrate their faith.
As the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11 nears, those younger Sikhs say much more is needed to improve how hate crimes against their community are tracked. The FBI didn’t even begin tracking hate crimes specifically against Sikhs until 2015, and many local law enforcement agencies fail to record bias attacks comprehensively.
“The onus is on a community organization like ours to identify the problem and then build support” to ensure better reporting, said Satjeet Kaur, executive director of the Sikh Coalition. Formed in the wake of Sept. 11, the largest Sikh advocacy group in the U.S. documented more than 300 cases of violence and discrimination against Sikh Americans in just the first few months.