Mandeep Singh stretched his arms while the American custom’s security officer patted him down. The officer told him he was going to move onto his turban. Mandeep agreed while he silently cursed the man. He knew the airport security mistook him and his family for people of the Islamic faith—the same religion well-known terrorist groups follow. Mandeep, however, is not a Muslim; he is a Sikh.
Mandeep, 24 years old, visits a Gurudwara (Sikh Temple) on a Sunday. He sits in the corner of the basement with people close to his age. His head is buried in his phone, making time to study for his finals. A group of young children run up to him and ask him to play. He doesn’t outright tell the kids to leave, but lets them pull on his arm as they feebly try to move him from his positon. Mandeep is adamant and won’t budge. A young boy, who also wears a turban, goes to his side and tackles him, but fails to push him from his seat. His turban becomes crooked. Mandeep helps him fix it before snatching his phone back from another kid.
Next week, Mandeep says, he won’t be at the Gurudwara. He had to focus his time on studying for finals at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine.
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Sikhism is a monotheistic religion, and it is the world’s fifth most popular religion, originating in the 16th century. It is often mispronounced as “seek.” Major tenets of the religion include worshipping one god, treating everyone equally, working hard, and never begging.
Male Sikhs wear turbans and grow their beards as a commitment of their faith. These visible identifications cause confusion between Sikhs and Muslims, who wear turbans for fashion or status reasons. However, many Muslims in the west don’t wear turbans. Most people who wear turbans are Sikhs.
Due to the rise of Islamophobia, Sikhs have been targets for Muslim hate crimes and discrimination. In recent years, these incidents include Sikh-American actor Waris Ahluwalia being denied passage on his flight because he refused to remove his turban and the 2012 Wisconsin shooting at a Sikh Temple.
Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, an assistant professor at Trinity University and a senior religion fellow at the Sikh Coalition, was mistaken for a Muslim even though he is a Sikh. During the annual New York City Marathon in November, Simran participated in the marathon and received anti-Muslim remarks from fellow participants and volunteers. It was his fifth year running.
He took to twitter to share his experience. “To the woman who just pulled back the water cup as I reached out and called me a ‘dirty Muslim’—screw you… also, to the dude who just yelled out: ‘Run faster everyone! That guy from ISIS is right behind you!’ Seriously, not cool.”
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“We like to tell ourselves ignorance only really occurs in rural communities and that’s also really ignorant,” says Simran. “I lived in New York City for nine years, and me and my friends experienced a lot of attacks.”
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, an American news satire and talk show program, explored this very topic in a video called, “Confused Islamophobes Target American Sikhs.” In the video, News Correspondent Hasan Minhaj walked around Times Square with a large photograph of “a bird, binoculars, a child playing hide-and-go-seek, and a man in a turban and a beard” and asked New Yorkers which one was a “Sikh.” All those who answered in the video answered incorrectly.
“[The video] was pretty interesting but, in my experience, not that surprising,” says Mandeep. “I think they should’ve asked them to name each one of the pictures to the best of their abilities. If they did that, I wonder how many would’ve said the Sikh was a Muslim.”
Minhaj asked a group of Sikhs, “Why don’t you go, ‘Hey, I’m not Muslim’?”
An unnamed Sikh said, “It’s just not an option for us to throw another community under the bus, even if it means things are harder for us. We believe it’s the right thing to do.”
Mandeep, Simran, and many Sikhs, aim to follow this disposition.
“I don’t resent Muslims or their community for the harassment of Sikhs,” says Mandeep. “They haven’t done anything to me personally. The way I see it, they’re the victims in all this, too.”
Hate crimes in the Middle Eastern and South Asian, including Sikh, communities soared as a result of the September 11 attacks.
Osama Bin Laden, leader of terrorist group al-Qaeda, wore a turban. During the 2000s, Laden’s likeness became familiar to Americans, who then started to associate turbans with Muslims, a common stereotype today. Through the rise of more terrorist attacks and Islamophobia, Muslims are associated with terrorism. Thus, Sikhs who wear turbans are also associated with terrorism.
Although President George W. Bush acknowledged the contributions Muslim Americans made in America through several public appearances, it did not prevent the ensuing prejudice. According to CNN, one month after 9/11, more than 300 cases of violence and discrimination against Sikhs were documented. The first hate crime after 9/11 was a fatal shooting of a Sikh man—not Muslim—in Arizona.
***
Prior to 9/11, in elementary school, students knew Mandeep and his reasons for wearing a turban.
Mandeep was 10 years old during the attacks, and he graduated to middle school two years later.
In this new environment, the students were not as familiar with Mandeep or Sikhs. They were familiar with, however, Laden, terrorism, and turbans.
Students would pull on Mandeep’s turban in the stairwell and run away. They would pass him in the hallways and taunt him openly. As the outcast, the brown sheep, Mandeep held his head down and accepted the reality.
Although school bullying was a difficult ordeal, Mandeep acknowledges his experience was not worse than other members of the Sikh community.
“The things I’ve gone through compared to other Sikhs is nothing,” says Mandeep. “I was lucky to never have been assaulted physically. You hear stories of a Sikh being attacked all the time in Gurudwaras.”
Whether he is walking on the sidewalks or going to his local grocery story, Mandeep always senses eyes on him wherever he goes. Walking at a normal pace, looking straight ahead, he tries not to draw too much attention from his actions, however small.
“The general attitude of New Yorkers is no one cares to look at you twice,” he says. “When you wear a turban, it’s different. Everyone gives you a glance. I understand that it’s noticeable…but, when you’ve been through the things I’ve been through, that glance can mean a lot of things… That insecurity is always in the back of my mind.”
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The root of Sikh prejudice is ignorance.
According to a 2015 Hart Research Associates survey, 60% of Americans admitted to having no knowledge of Sikhism.
“When you say you’re a Christian, you don’t have to elaborate on anything,” says Mandeep. When you say you’re a Sikh, you have to spell it out, give the other pronunciation to see if they are familiar with that one, or explain that it’s a religion.”
This ignorance leads to hate crime against the wrong community.
In August 2012, there was a mass shooting at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, resulting in the deaths of six Sikhs. Law enforcements concluded that the perpetrator, Wade Michael Page, had ties to white supremacy, and believed he confused the Sikhs for Muslims.
The ignorance extends to government agencies, such as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). American-Sikh actor Waris Ahluwalia was not allowed to board his flight in Mexico City, because he refused to remove his turban during security check. The actor had already faced extra screening, and was delayed for two days.
When a person travels back to their home country, they go through their home country’s customs. In this case, it was American customs who denied Ahluwalia his flight to home as it was American customs who had Mandeep and his family go through additional security measures.
The Sikh Coalition, an organization that defends Sikhs’ civil rights, stepped in to assist Ahluwalia at the airport. They also have guidelines for Sikhs when traveling by plane, and a system for Sikhs to file a TSA complaint if they felt they have been treated discriminately.
“The number one issue is ignorance,” says Simran as the coalition’s senior religious fellow. “How we combat ignorance is by educating America [about] who Sikhs are and what they believe. What we try to do is release their fear by introducing a humanity.”
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In the wake of President-Elect Donald Trump, Mandeep worries about the impassioned racists and Islamophobes that will be given a voice in the coming years.
He watches the Sikh children run around in the basement of the Gurudwara.
“After 9/11, the wound was fresh, so the worse has passed. At least, I hope so,” says Mandeep. “I hope Trump won’t be able to spread the hate the same way 9/11 did. Then, [these children] won’t have to face the same hate I did.”