by BALBIR K. SINGH
On the evening of Saturday, September 21, 2013, Dr. Prabhjot Singh was attacked in Harlem, New York, by what is estimated to have been around 20 males riding bicycles. The event has been publically labeled a violent hate crime, as Singh described his attackers yelling words such as “terrorist” and “Osama.” Particularly notable is the emergent discourse that has come out of Singh’s attack, as the conversation harkens back to other more noticeable moments of racist violence against Sikhs. These include the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi in the days following 9/11, as well as the attack of the Oak Creek gurdwara in August 2012, where six members of the congregation were murdered by white supremacist Wade Michael Page. Curiously, the mainstream Sikh response to Oak Creek and now Singh’s attack, has been marked heavily by calls for the Sikh practice of “Chardhi Kala,” which translates to a state of joy and eternal optimism. For example, it has been invoked by the Sikh Coalition in its “Chardhi Kala 6k,” a memorial walk and run to remember the victims of Oak Creek on the one-year anniversary in hopes of “turning tragedy into triumph.”
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Following this logic of gratitude, Singh goes on to assert, “Even more important to me than my attackers being caught is that they are taught.” Since 9/11, the narrative of misidentification and the need to educate about Sikhism and Sikh identity has propelled hasty anti-Muslim language. In response to this unintended form of Islamophobia, minority voices in the Sikh community have more recently made distinct efforts to demonstrate solidarity with Muslims in the U.S., articulating the necessary coalition-building efforts about the two similarly vulnerable populations. However, rather than coalition-building, the platform of education, dedicated solely to Sikhism, is increasingly stressed as the only antidote to violence against Sikhs.
In this frenzy to give meaning to Singh’s attack, the education platform appears to be another form of violence. Exploited by conservative and liberal elements Singh has become a mere example of misidentification, a representative figure for the sake of the U.S. Sikh mainstream voices that deny the singularity of Singh’s experience of violence. What appears then might be that Singh’s attack has been forced into the common sense reaction of institutional instruction as the primary U.S. Sikh political platform, even before he himself may have had time to reflect and process the terrifying event of September 21st. The uniqueness of Singh’s individual experience as a survivor of violence, has thus not only been erased by the brutality of a racist attack but doubly erased by the common sense discourse which frames his experience as merely part of the Sikh community’s struggle to both cohere to the model minority myth, and to achieve the “American dream.”
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