Interview with Shonali Bose, director of Amu and Margarita, with a Straw
Posted by Brooklynwala in Film on 09 4th, 2014 | 66 Comments
Shonali Bose, writer and director of the acclaimed 2005 film Amu (which powerfully uncovered the brutal realities of 1984) has just completed a new feature film called Margarita, with a Straw. Premiering next week at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film is a coming of age love story about...
PUZZL3PEACE: The Photography of Jusdeep Singh Sethi
PUZZL3PEACE is the alias of Los Angeles born Sikh artist Jusdeep Singh Sethi, who passed away last year in a tragic accident at the age of 21. Jusdeep, the younger brother of hip hop artist Mandeep Sethi, used 35mm film photography as his primary means of creative expression. He was known for his...
Palestine/Israel 101
185 Palestinians have been killed, thousands injured, and nearly 1,000 homes destroyed in the last week in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes (underwritten by American tax dollars). My last post about the dangers of Sikh alliances with pro-Israel groups has sparked some important and much needed discussion and...
Solidarity with Oppression? The Danger of a Sikh-Israel Alliance
A rally in Brooklyn, NY in support of the BDS movement on Monday.
Monday evening in Brooklyn, about 50 people gathered to protest Israeli apartheid and encourage the boycott of Israeli goods, a part of the growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Inspired by the effective use of boycott...
Sikh Pride, Gay Pride
This past weekend was pride weekend in my home of New York City and many other cities around the country and world. I missed many of the festivities because I was traveling but did attend the annual Trans Day of Action last Friday, a march a rally organized by the Audre Lorde Project and many other groups...
Faith & Social Justice: Millennial Leaders Conference (applications due 5/23)
A few weeks ago, I was invited to participate in a planning and brainstorming retreat for an innovative pilot project that Union Theological Seminary is launching this summer. UTS, which has a longstanding commitment to social justice, are aiming to bring together a group of 30 young(ish) (21-35...
Sikh Freedom Ride: Youth Embark on Caravan for El Paso 37
When most of us imagine what the people inside immigration detention centers in the United States look like, we usually do not think of Sikhs from Punjab. Our Sikh American community — and more broadly South Asian American community — has been reluctant to deeply engage with the harsh realities...
Vaisakhi Interesectional Inspiration
We Sikhs are celebrating ‪‎Vaisakhi this week, the 315th birthday of the Khalsa, a body of revolutionaries given the responsibility to tear down tyranny and oppression in all its forms. Hundreds of years ago, Sikhs had an intersectional analysis of oppression, recognizing that all forms...
Hair double standards?
An unexpected video posted on the Jezebel.com has gone viral in the last 24 hours. The moving clip highlights the  story of 23-year-old Harnaam Kaur from Slough, UK who has a full beard. Harnaam’s polycystic ovary syndrome led to her facial and body hair growth as a pre-teen, resulting in...
The Singh Nod
Happy Monday!
The Sikh response to homophobia in India and beyond
A few weeks ago, the Indian Supreme Court re-criminalized sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex. The Supreme Court overturned a 2009 decision by the Delhi High Court to strike down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which came directly from a British colonial law from 1861. Section...
Quebec proposes another ban on religious garb (off the soccer field)
Quebec is at it again. Just a few months after the Quebec Soccer Federation reversed its ban on turbans and other religious headwear on the field after a whole lot of public outcry, officials in Quebec have introduced a proposal to ban “conspicuous religious symbols” from public sector workplaces....
Bringing Sikh voices to Interfaith Collborations for Justice
I’ve been invited to and participated in a number of interfaith gatherings, conferences, retreats, and discussions over the years. Time and time again I find myself being the only Sikh in these spaces. And often find that the well-meaning, progressive faith-based activists in these spaces don’t...
State-sponsored Genocide from Guatemala to India: A step towards justice
In 1984, as the Indian government was terrorizing Sikhs in northern India, mass campaigns of state-sponsored extermination were occurring in the Americas as well. The small Central American nation of Guatemala, under the rule of US-backed Efrain Rios Montt, was one such place. While Indira Gandhi’s...
Uprooting Anti-Black Racism: Desi-African Musical Connections
Many of us Sikhs and other South Asians in the diaspora have grown up with subtle and not so subtle messages of anti-black racism from our families and communities at large. While on the one hand we learn through Sikhi that all people are equal regardless of their race, caste, or gender, we simultaneously...
Prayers for Boston & for an End to Racist Backlash
As you have probably heard by now, Boston is reeling in the aftermath of a few explosions near the Boston marathon this afternoon. Two people have been killed and dozens injured and being treated at local hospitals. I’ve been texting, calling, and checking up on friends in the area all afternoon....
10 Years
This March marked ten years since the United States invaded Iraq in the name of Iraqi freedom. Ten years later, potentially over one million Iraqi civilian deaths later, where are we now? What are the people of Iraq left with? Aside from extreme instability and near genocide, Iraqis are now dealing with...
Punjabi Stockton, Bengali Harlem
Most of us are probably familiar with the history of the first wave of Punjabi migration to California in the late 1800s and early 1900s. These pioneers, many Sikhs, set up the country’s first gurdwara in Stockton, formed the Ghadhar Party to overthrow the British Raj, and many ended up marrying...
The Turban(ator) Goes Mainstream
(Disclaimer: I’ve never watched American Idol before. It’s true.)
Most of you are probably already well aware that a young Sikh named Gurpreet Singh Sarin appeared on American Idol last night and made it through the first hurdle. In case you missed it, here is the clip from his audition in...
The trials and tribulations of dating while Sikh
A young Singh in the UK has been in the spotlight the last few days after his appearance on a dating television show called “Take Me Out.” I just heard about it a show on BBC Radio 1 hosted by Nihal, which you can listen to in its entirety here. Nihal speaks with Param, the dating...
