It was September 16, 2001, the day after Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot dead as a backlash to the horrific event of 9/11. It was a case of mistaken identity that came as a wakeup call for the entire Sikh community. Suddenly, like many other Sikhs, I did not feel safe as a Sikh – American.
I got a phone call from my friend JJ Singh, who is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur,
“We need to get organized and market our community just the way we market our companies”, he said. Several others felt similarly and this gave birth to Sikh Communications; an organization among many others that came into being post 9/11. Sikhs across America had a new charter – to get Americans acquainted with their Sikh neighbors. The Sikh identity was front and center in the collective campaigning.
Today, there are many individuals and over a dozen organizations including SALDEF and Sikh Coalition that are actively involved in doing good work for the community in the area of human rights, legal defense and education. In spite of these efforts, there have been over 20 hate crimes against Sikhs since 9/11 with the last big one in Oak Creek, Wisconsin that resulted in killing of six innocent Sikhs.
We garner a lot of sympathy from non-Sikh citizens around us when a hate crime is perpetuated against us. The Wisconsin shooting is an example of extensive media coverage that followed a tragic event.
We even managed to score a small victory when house members from NY, NJ and CA introduced the resolution H.Res.785 recognizing contribution of Sikh-Americans and asking FBI to record hate crimes against Sikhs. Thanks to the efforts of many advocacy groups, TSA is better educated. Nonetheless a majority of us who travel frequently are still singled out for “random checks” while going through domestic airports.
Despite all the progress that has been made to educate America about Sikhs, there is an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Somewhere deep down I resent the fact that every time the spotlight is put on us, it portrays Sikhs as victims.
Does anyone care to present Sikhs as a hard working community that has made its mark in lots of professions – all the way from an owner of a gas station to senior executives at Fortune 1000 companies to Doctors and Educators? I don’t remember seeing any such coverage. There are no visible role models amongst Sikhs because no one has cared to portray Sikhs as role models
I wanted to test my theory that we are perceived as victims. I asked my son Zoraver Singh, a sophomore at UC Riverside to do some research. He went to Google search and checked both Web and Image links to search for Sikhs. What he found shocked me even more. When he searched for American Sikh role models, except for one Facebook link, there was nothing relevant; nothing that puts Sikhs in a positive light. Searching for Sikh educator, entrepreneur, high tech executive, business man, sportsman or doctor brought up over and over again images of Sikhs as victims of various hate crimes. Where are the movers and shakers that have contributed to practically every field in America? Where are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the physicists, the economists who are changing the future of science and technology?
I am not talking about India’s prime minister or a long distance runner in his 100th year, but a Sikh writer, poet, educator, high tech executive or even a successful business man in the neighborhood.
We spent the last twelve years since 9/11 focused on highlighting the hate crimes against us. As much as this is the right thing to do, let us spend our next ten to twenty years in showcasing successful, mainstream Sikh professionals so that future generations see us for who we are.
Let all of us take the responsibility of going to mainstream events and be seen and heard. We need to create digital content about Sikhs. This is the only way the new generation will find information on our community. If we find an article or a picture of a successful Sikh in any sphere, let us spread it on social media amongst our friends, and not just Sikh friends.
Back to my earlier concern – do I feel safe as a Sikh post 9/11? Certainly, I do feel safer than on the day when Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot dead. However, I also feel the image of a victim is doing a disservice to me. Furthermore, being a victim does not keep any one safe in the long run.
If we want to feel safe not just now, but for all times to come, we need to showcase our successes, elevate our image by promoting those that can be seen as role models, not merely for our community but for the entire country. And we do have plenty of role models in the community.
We need advocacy of a different kind.
Ravinder Paul Singh is the CEO of a software startup Espresso Logic, Inc. He has been a Founder, CEO and Advisor to many software startups in the Mobile, Internet and Telecom areas. He has had many wins along the way including three successful exits as a Founder – Veraz going public on NASDAQ, CyLAN acquired by Hifn and Internetware acquired by Symantec. He is also a board member of the TiE Silicon Valley and was co-convener for TiEcon 2013; the largest entrepreneur conference in the world. He also worked as an Entrepreneur in residence at Lightspeed Venture Partners looking at companies in mobile, and cloud areas. He has authored three books on Internet related topics.
Ravinder Paul Singh:
The below stated questions must be answered by us before we raise our fingers on other non-Sikh humans and create a further puzzle for law and enforcement:
We Sikhs have many elements beside the foreignness.
Why police is frequently called by Sikhs in Temples/Gurdwaras?
Why Cameras were off that could have captured the real time activities?
Why Sikh religion management is involved in dubious activities?
Why Sikh Gurdwara managements are involved in drug and human smuggling?
Why another Sikh was murderer in same locality within few days?
Was there any link of Sikh Temple shooting or not?
Why there was no internal investigation by Sikh organization?
Why Sikhs murderer Sikhs members at its own religious Places?
Why Michael Page did not fire all and decided to come out and fire at police officer then kill himself or not?
Did Michael run out of targets, if it was random shooting?
Was it acted as a domestic terrorism, bad drug deal or hired hit man?
We must take some responsibility instead finger pointing toward others. Sikhs are not honest and truthful hence must get help from technology. Camera including audio recording will be great protection and safety in the future. The real time recording will be fact finder in cheater’s society to protect innocents Sikh members and expose criminals.
Ravinder Paul Singh:
All stated organization had been working for their own benefits and suck the donation and grants with false and fraudulent paper works. We Sikhs deserve and Guru Ji blessing disrespect as we’re not honest to ourselves, our own religion and community.
Sympathy only from minorities like Muslim or Groups those hate America not from main stream who really know Moral and Ethics of most of Sikh Members. Our own deeds superimpose the media coverage with every minute crime committed by Sikh community members Worldwide.
We Sikhs are treated like babies by FBI, just like parents feed baby after cry. The victory is short lived and will be faded by Sikh criminals. We must screen and find corrective action to our own Gurdwara and its managements those are International crooks and criminals.
That is fact, we have our own preacher, management member wants to enjoy latest perk of technology but wants to keep congregation members in seventeenth century. Is it fair for Sikh leaders to betray trust of congregation members? They do not understand very first page of Guru Ji’s teaching and wants us to worship the Alive Guru Ji “Shi Guru Granth Sahib Ji”.
Who care for professional as Taxi driver, Truck Driver, Store Sales Staff who sell Cigarette, Tobacco, Liquor and dead Meat (especially Amritdhari & Khalsa) are our religion and community leaders. The professional offer donation for tax advantage and humiliate their fellow professional Sikhs and enjoy others disrespects. We earn our own disrespect as Amritdhari and Khalsa are most criminals. There are visible role models amongst Sikhs but dominated by THUG SIKHS with false and Fabricated evidences. The most of the Sikh have come abroad with FALSE and FABRICATED evidence with totally FALSE OATHS.
We Sikhs must not be in positive light as they are educated fools listening uneducated, with little knowledge of Sikh History, Religion and communities activities. Sikh educator, entrepreneur, high tech executive, business man, sportsman or doctor brought up over and over again images of Sikhs as victims of various not hate crimes but organized revenge actions and we blame others. It has been proved in Australia, Philippines, Italy, UK, Canada and America. Technical skills and technical education has no link to commonsense and statesmanship, who can not foresee the future of community, country or religion.
Why we could not find reason, the frequent fights like street dogs and police called by Sikhs in Gurdwaras not any other religion facilities?
Why we allow taxi/truck, store/gas station, or uneducated/criminals men/women allow to command us, lecture us, embezzled our donated funds, bully or insult us in our own Gurdwara?
Where are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the physicists, the economists who are changing the future of science and technology? Answer: We have no self respect did not learn to respect others, contaminated by greed and false ego.
We spent the last twelve years since 9/11 focused on highlighting the hate crimes against us. As much as this is the right thing to do, let us spend our next ten to twenty years in showcasing successful, mainstream Sikh professionals so that future generations see us for who we are. Answer: We’re THUG Sikhs of 20th Century that have embezzled 7.3 Billion dollars in last 35 years. Does anyone have account; if not then we are the brainless Sikhs and will contaminate 21st century Sikh generation.
If we want to track success stories then we must track Sikh crimes to analyze the ratio and resultant impact positive or negative.
We must implement POLYGRAPH for our Sikh Leader at all levels, if we want to feel safe not just now, but for all times to come, we need to showcase our successes, elevate our image by promoting those that can be seen as role models, not merely for our community but for the entire World and we’ll have plenty of role models in the community.
We need advocacy of a different kind to filter criminal Sikhs with Polygraph as all other options are going to fail.