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| In this Dec. 11, 2015, photo, Darsh Singh, left, poses for a photo with his wife, Lakhpreet Kaur, in Dallas. It happens regularly: Someone sees a man with a turban and beard and hurls anti-Muslim slurs his way, or worse. Members of the Sikh religion, like Singh and his wife, also are feeling vulnerable as anti-Islamic sentiment heats up across the U.S., but instead of distancing themselves from Muslims, members of this southeast Asian religion are working with them to combat hateful rhetoric and dispel misconceptions about their respective faiths. |
CHICAGO
(AP) -- 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 an entirely 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 U.S., Sikhs and Muslims are banding together to defend their
respective religions. Someone bent on harming Muslims wouldn't
understand - or care - about the distinction between the two faiths,
they say, and both also deserve to live in peace.
So
they plan educational sessions and rallies. They successfully pushed
the FBI to track hate crimes against Sikhs. They speak to lawmakers and
support each other's legal action, including a lawsuit filed over a New
York City police surveillance program 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 Sept. 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 U.S. Male followers often cover their heads with 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 vandalized, as
was a truck in the parking lot by someone who misspelled the word
"Islam" and made an obscene reference to ISIS.
A
Sikh woman said she recently was forced to show her breast pump before
taking her seat on an airplane in Minneapolis because another passenger
thought she might be a terrorist. Several Sikh football fans said they
initially were not allowed into Qualcomm Stadium to watch the San Diego
Chargers game against the Denver Broncos last Sunday because several of
them were wearing turbans. Schoolchildren say they've been bullied.
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 recently 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 Muhammad, he's
too explosive." A friend came to his defense with a lengthy post
-saying, "do the world a favor and educate yourself" - which got tens of
thousands of likes.
"A lot of people act out of fear or ignorance," said Singh. "I don't know who started it, but whoever they are, I forgive them."
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 percent 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.
Madihha Ahussain, a staff
attorney at the national group Muslim Advocates, said people who are
misinformed about both religions not only are "blaming entire faith
communities, now they're blaming multiple groups for the acts of a
couple individuals."
As a result, some Sikhs have encountered violence.
A
Chicago-area teenager was charged with a hate crime after a September
road rage incident in which he called 53-year-old Sikh taxi driver
Inderjit Mukker "Bin Laden" and repeatedly hit him in the face, breaking
his cheekbone.
In 2013, a Green Bay,
Wisconsin, man was charged with a hate crime for allegedly setting fire
to a convenience store owned by a Sikh-American.
That
was less than a year after white supremacist Wade Michael Page killed
six people and wounded four others at the Oak Creek temple. Kaleka said
his father, Satwant Singh Kaleka, was the last person killed inside the
temple, after Page broke into an office where the elder Kaleka was
calling 911.
Kaleka said the Muslim community
reached out to Sikhs in the aftermath, and members of both faiths -
along with Christians, Jews and others - are continuing to work together
to combat inflammatory rhetoric. Last weekend, he spoke at a Muslim
women's coalition.
"I think this is just
another test and, unfortunately, I think as bad as the comments are from
some politicians, it does surface some underlying issues we haven't
addressed," in this country, he said.
