For Muslim and Sikh Americans, 9/11 Changed the World in More Ways than One
For some Americans, the memory of 9/11 remains painfully fresh in hate crimes, racial profiling
On every 9/11 anniversary, Americans come together to remember lost lives and brave heroes. It’s a moment when diverse communities come together, as they did in 2001, to mourn and move forward together.
Fourteen years ago, Americans united under our flag to show the world our nation indivisible — our defiantly peaceful response to senseless hatred. Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans were among the many joining their fellow Americans in a search for answers, praying and hoping for peace. At the same time, it became clear that some Americans would now see them as the “enemy.” And in the decade to follow, their families would become targets of hate, excessive violence, and government suspicion and surveillance.
That’s why when we say we “never forget,” we also must not forget the discrimination that many Asian Americans have endured since, which continues today.
Much of this discrimination comes from government policies that allow our communities to be profiled and singled out. As Deepa Iyer writes today in The Guardian, “federal anti-profiling guidance still allows for racial and ethnic mapping by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the name of national security, leaving the door open for state and local law enforcement to spy on our communities at mosques, hookah bars, restaurants and cricket matches, as the New York Police Department has been doing for years.”
The post-9/11 world has also led to a proliferation of hate crimes against Asian Americans. In the year after 9/11, the FBI reported a 1,600 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes. Valarie Kaur, a Sikh American activist and filmmaker, traveled the country documenting the stories of Americans who were beaten, and worse, simply for donning a turban, a daily symbol of their faith. And we were left stunned and horrified three years ago to see Sikh Americans killed in their place of worship.
Fourteen years have gone by since 9/11, but the xenophobic sentiment remains. Just this week, Inderjit Singh Mukker, a 53-year-old Sikh American and father of two, was brutally assaulted on his way to the grocery store. His assailants referred to him as “terrorist” and “Bin Laden” and shouted at him to “Go back to your country.”
In a statement following Mukker’s attack, Tuyet Le, executive director of Advancing Justice | Chicago, said, “From the Oak Creek massacre to the North Carolina shootings; from police brutality in Alabama to yesterday’s assault of Inderjit Singh Mukker in Darien, Illinois; it is clear that this type of xenophobia and Islamophobia exists in our communities, and we will not tolerate it in Chicago or anywhere else.”
Groups like the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) and the Sikh Coalition have done incredible work in the past decade in raising awareness about Sikh Americans’ beliefs as well as their contributions to America. And our colleagues at South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) have advocated against discriminatory government practices that racially profile our communities. We’ve joined them in this work, but there’s much left to be done.
Today, as we remember the lives lost to the day’s attacks, all Americans must also honor the victims of post-9/11 hate crimes and insist on hate crime legislation in every state to protect and strengthen all of our communities.
Dr. Prabhjot Singh, a Sikh American physician, professor, and community leader, spoke extensively on the topic of violent crimes against Sikh Americans and how to address that type of hatred after he was attacked in 2013:
“There’s nothing in the Sikh faith that says not to prosecute or not hold people responsible … but what we’ve seen generally is that whenever a Sikh family is asked to move into (a) prosecutorial decision, there’s really a heavy leaning towards reaching for something deeper … something more based on healing, learning, restorative justice — seeing that this isn’t necessarily even just about the perpetrator. It’s really about a broader set of issues, including education, including outreach.”
Advancing Justice | AAJC will recognize Dr. Prabhjot Singh for his leadership in combating hate and for his contributions to national discussions on race relations at the Advancing Justice | AAJC American Courage Awards on October 1, 2015 in Washington, D.C.
