What Next? Re-thinking Sikh Identity After the Wisconsin Tragedy
Guest blogged by Parvinder Mehta
Amidst the barrage and frenzy of shock and surprise and the discussions about why the Sikh community has been targeted and victimized through history, I wonder how Sikh parents have tried to make sense of the massacre of six Sikhs and the suicide of the gunman who came with his hateful agenda to the Gurdwara in Wisconsin earlier this month. “How can one human kill another human being on purpose?” I am always haunted by this question. As a parent, I shudder at the thought of violence creeping up in our lives. It is tough explaining to your children why some people commit heinous crimes against innocent people and why some people do not like Sikhs or may have never known about Sikhs. Or explaining why a Michigan Gurdwara was vandalized last year and how ignorance can be a dangerous premise.
I knew I must tackle the endless questions that they would ask about why someone committed this heinous act. I knew I must not use any rhetoric of hate or fear when talking to my children, the same way as my parents had taught me. Terms like prejudice, bias, racism, and ignorance are part of my children’s vocabulary much sooner than I had hoped. As a teacher and a parent, as a proud and practicing Sikh, I have always shared the anecdotes from Sikh history with my children where courage, not fear, is the driving lesson. The crucial question that we, as Sikh American parents, are faced is how we reassure our children that such hate-driven incidents will never recur. What can we do as Sikh parents to promise our children a hate-free environment so they can assert their Sikh identities without fear?
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[…] a post today on The Langar Hall considers how Sikhs and Sikh Americans may navigate through the future: As Sikh Americans, how can we take responsibility for maintaining a non-ethnocentric framework for […]
[…] Although education alone will not dispel white supremacy, we are in dire need of large scale efforts that help children learn the skills and tools to understand one another across cultures. We need to help large numbers of parents find better, more proactive ways to address hate. We must offer widespread, in-depth teacher training and ways to hold teachers accountable to that training. For example, mandating that Sikhism be included in a textbook or on a college campus is great and I condone and celebrate that achievement. But, how do we know it is being taught and accurately at that? Are we training teachers in those states in mass numbers? Are we evaluating the outcome of presentations we give in communities to see if the learning that took place was 1. effective 2. relevant to participants’ daily lives or 3. translated into action after the presentation itself? […]
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