Khuli Dhari: My Journey to Beard Liberation
My childhood was full of insecurity and self-doubt, the result of years of harassment, taunts, and jokes about the ball/rag/tomato/towel/etc. on my head as a turban-wearing child. My insecurities, however, began to shift (or expand) as puberty hit. Let’s call it facial hair anxiety.
At first,...
Brooklyn Singh vs. Walmart
I just got an email from the Working Families Party (a progressive political party in NYC) about the latest developments in mega-corporation Walmart’s latest attempts to set up shop in NYC. One of the biggest real estate development companies in the city called Related is reportedly in discussions...
Cycling Sikhs and Safety
Amritsar, 1946
I’m going to continue on what appears to be our theme of the week here at TLH — Sikhs and sports. I’m not much of an athlete, though I had a good run of Little League baseball when I was a kid in North Carolina. I remember how goofy I felt wearing my team’s...
Proud Sikh at Pride Parade
A friend sent me this photo yesterday from this past weekend’s annual LGBT Pride Parade in New York City, which was attended by about a million people. I’ve seen this Singh around NYC before. He happens to be one of the transit workers standing up to the NYC Transit Authority’s...
Sarbat da Bhala in Action in Sacramento
As the Sikh community in Sacramento continues to grieve the losses of hate crime victims Surinder Singh and Gurmej Singh Atwal who were gunned down earlier this Spring (with no suspects still), the Sacramento Sikh Temple has truly embodied the Sikh spirit of sarbat da bhala this past week, extending...
Incarceration & Religious Freedom: A Sikh Story from Behind Bars
A few years ago I was putting up some flyers on street poles and bulletin boards in Williamsburg, Brooklyn promoting an upcoming concert for my band. If you’re from New York City, you know Williamsburg is a neighborhood covered with concert flyers and band logos, and the home of dozens of music...
Longing for home, from Palestine to Punjab
Last week marked the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, meaning catastrophe, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. I, and others, have argued elsewhere why the Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination...
Happy Birthday Malcolm
Today marks the 86th birthday of the late African American activist Malcolm X. We’ve been hearing a lot about Malcolm X lately since the recent release of a new biography about him written by the great scholar Manning Marable, who just passed away a few weeks ago.
A controversial and often misunderstood...
“My Headcovering is Downright Sikh” – Sikhtoons debut book released
As mentioned last month, New York City-based Vishavjit Singh released his first “Sikhtoons” book this Spring. Entitled My Headcovering is Downright Sikh: An Illustrated Intro to Turbans, the book “uses a collection of cartoons from Sikhtoons.com to create a visual narrative to...
The Death of Bin Laden & the Soul of the USA
It’s been over a week now. I’ve been wanting to write, but have been on the road, my head spinning with newspaper headlines and the voices of cable news pundits. Navdeep posted some thoughtful reflections and questions here, and in the meantime, we’ve had the opportunity to see...
Journeys with Kabir
Earlier this week I went to a screening of the film Koi Sunta Hai, one of four documentaries produced by the Kabir Project, an expansive music and film project directed by Shabnam Virani.
In their own words:
The Kabir project brings together the experiences of a series of ongoing journeys in quest of...
Turban Warfare or Racist Warfare (courtesy of the NY Post)?
This past Sunday, violence erupted in an ongoing conflict between rival factions at the Gurdwara Baba Makhan Shah Lobana in Richmond Hill, Queens, the heart of New York’s Sikh community. Large kirpans as well as cricket bats and balls were used in the fighting. Dozens of community members and “leaders”...
RIP Gurmej Singh Atwal
While Sikhs around the world were celebrating Vaisakhi last week, 78-year-old Gurmej Singh Atwal, one of the two men who were shot in what was likely a hate attack in Elk Grove, California in March, died on Friday. The Sacramento Bee reports:
“He’s no more,” his son said. “First...
French Niqab Ban in Action
The controversial new French law that bans Muslim women from wearing the niqab, or full-face veil, went into effect today and was met with resistance in Paris. The New York Times reports:
The police detained two fully veiled women at a small protest outside the Notre Dame cathedral in central Paris,...
Gay Marriage, Sikhi, and the Repeal of DOMA
Posted by Brooklynwala in Activism, Human Rights, Politics, Sikhi, USA on 04 5th, 2011 | 30 Comments
Advocates of gay rights celebrated after the Obama administration in late February said that it would no longer support the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that bans the recognition of same-sex marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, defines...
Sikhtoons book to be released
Happy 100th Birthday Fauja Singh!
New York City-based Vishavjit Singh, the creator of Sikhtoons, is releasing his very first Sikhtoons illustrated book next weekend at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival in NYC. We’ve blogged about Vishavjit and Sikhtoons many times before, and are...
Soul Food (and Parontha) Junkies
As a continuation of the conversation initiated by Navdeep’s post “Fatting it Up at the Langar Hall,” I want to share this the trailer for Soul Food Junkies, a film-in-progress directed by African American filmmaker and activist Byron Hurt.
The parallels to the challenges we face in...
Japan in Crisis: What you can do
Posted by Brooklynwala in Activism, Environment, Human Rights, World News on 03 17th, 2011 | 17 Comments
The aftermath of last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan is nothing short of horrific. I’m sure most of you have seen footage of the devastation on the news and on YouTube. My mind is boggled, my heart is aching, and I am all in all extremely overwhelmed by what is happening.
While...
Class Tyranny in Wisconsin
By now you’ve probably heard about Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s attack on working class people and labor unions in Wisconsin. This week, Walker’s bill, which undermines public sector workers’ right to collectively bargain and slashes their benefits, among other things,...
Sikh men gunned down in possible hate crime in Sacramento
The Sacramento Bee is reporting that two elderly Sikh men were shot while going on an afternoon walk in their suburban neighborhood on Friday. One of the men, 67-year-old Surinder Singh died from the attack on Friday, and 78-year-old Gurmej Atwal is in critical condition, suffering from two gunshot...
