Brown Man with a Beard
One Experience in a Conflicted America
As a first-generation Indian-American immigrant male in my twenties, there are multiple facets to my racial and cultural identity. I want to focus on just one: my beard.
After going to Catholic high school where facial hair violated dress code policy, meaning I had to be clean-shaven every morning as a sixteen-year-old (read: torture), college in Southern California was a welcome change. Since that time, I’ve participated in the unofficial tradition of No Shave November and have continued to keep a beard usually until January partly because it’s easy and mostly because it’s fun.
I’ll be honest — I can grow a full-bodied beard in a relatively short amount of time and aside from the fact that it’s something I enjoy having, it’s extremely convenient that there is a time of year when guys my age are encouraged to grow out their facial hair.
Whenever friends have complimented me on my beard, I’ve always replied with, “Thanks, it’s a blessing and a curse.” Up until now that’s meant it’s a genetic blessing that I can grow it but it’s a curse when I go through an “itchy” phase.
But this year’s seasonal beard experiment has been a bit different and it’s made me question whether wearing a beard may be another kind of curse altogether. For the first time, I’ve noticed more people looking at me suspiciously and some people even seem to treat me differently in our day to day interactions.
Then I am reminded of stories like this:
A Sikh shop owner in Michigan was shot in the face before being called a terrorist. The store owner was brought in a backroom by a gunman…[who] demanded money and accused the man of being part of ISIS...
…A local news station WXMI-TV reported the gunman said “I used to kill people like you in Iraq with no problem.” The gunman shoved the gun in the man’s face and fired on him…After being shot in the face, the store owned called the police on his cell phone. (Source)
The Sikh shop clerk, a Punjabi Indian named Tony, looks a lot like me; he is a brown man with a beard. At a time when the threat of terrorism — foreign and domestic — against Americans of all colors and creeds is a topic of concern, when suspects — especially minorities — are increasingly shown to be victims of deadly force by the police, when a presidential front-runner proposes unconstitutional restrictions on those of a certain background, when innocent families fleeing the horrors of war are denied refuge for fear of the potential terrorists they are trying to escape, when people in communities as diverse and tolerant as the San Francisco Bay Area are singled out for exercising their freedoms, and when brown men with beards are shot for the way they look — the sideways glances I’ve noticed are difficult to ignore. If suspicious looks are on one end of the spectrum, shooting a man for the way he looks is on the other. But they both lie on the same spectrum.
“I don’t know why (the gunman) associated him with terrorism, maybe it’s because of our skin, because of what we look like, and it could happen to anyone that looks like us or has our skin tone,” the manager said.
“That’s just the sad part because, at the end of the day, we’re just normal people trying to live normal lives, we’re not associated with anything like that, and it’s unfair that we have to live in that fear.” (Source)
So what do we do? Indeed, nobody is free of preconceived notions and it isn’t only members of the “white” population denigrating other groups as is oftentimes portrayed. The shooter in the Michigan robbery was, in fact, described by the clerk as a “black man.” We are all guilty of harboring prejudices. I too have my own snap judgments to overcome, I too do not have all the answers. But I do have a goal that I try to implement in my own life, one I hope others will also strive towards:
Don’t stand for fear-mongering and fall into the trap of divisiveness.
The hate crime in Michigan shouldn’t make you mad because a Sikh Indian was characterized as an Islamic terrorist — rather, you should be appalled that an individual in America was attacked for the way they looked. Period. It shouldn’t matter whether Tony was an Indian Sikh, Iraqi Muslim, Irish Catholic, or Japanese Buddhist. We are all Americans, and while there may still be a handful of violent bigots out there, we must not allow hate in any form to permeate around us as a society. It is the day to day pockets of fear and hate that enable the larger, violent acts. This means that while you may not be able to directly stop the violent acts of racism that fall on one end of the spectrum, you can do something about the “microaggressions” that occur every day on the other end — and that makes a difference. As human beings, we will always have preconceived notions about others, but division from our fellow man occurs the moment we let them take over our actions. Before you assume the worst of another, talk to them, find out more about them, keep yourself open to accepting them. Even a simple smile and nod will usually be reciprocated and it will tell you something more about a person than what you may have already presumed.
This is not the first time that we’ve faced divisiveness in our country and it will not be the last. But for every decade that goes by in America’s history, we need to work to take two steps forward for every one step set back, this can be achieved through something as simple as keeping an open mind.
Now the question for me is, what do I do about my beard? Is it a curse that increases my odds of being negatively profiled? Perhaps, by some. Am I going to shave it off because of that? Not a chance, not when there are fellow Americans willing to keep the ideals of unity and acceptance alive in our daily lives— and as long as it doesn’t get too itchy.
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