Today on my walk to work, I saw an elderly Sikh couple sitting on a stoop next to the sidewalk. I greeted them in passing with a "Sat Sri Akaal ji" to which both turned, smiled and enthusiastically replied. I walked further and said "Good morning," to another man who was staring at them a few yards further. He responded, still looking, probably just out of curiousity, before he continued into a building. I pass all kinds of people every day. There are elderly Indian couples, Latinos, African Americans, Muslim families, Latinos, Caucasions, even Caucasion Hari Krishnas around as I walk to work every day. It's a treat to pass by a Mandir and Churches, with a Mosque and several more Churches and a Synagogue down the street. I often see elderly women with their tiny footsteps, as they walk down the street in hijab, or in saris, carrying small grocery bags. There are men and women in turbans, kurtas, baseball hats, baggy jeans, suits, or a cowboy hats and boots.To me this is a treasure. The stories, a variety of languages, occupations, dreams and passions are all so rich. I need not travel the world to find it. It is right here at my doorstep and it is the most comforting, beautiful thing I can imagine. This place is not without crime and hardship, nor is it lacking in any other complications of every day life. Yet I see all manner of people up and down these streets, quite at home for this is their home. I say this without ignorance of the great economic divide that exists, where expensive restaurants line well patrolled streets in one section, and a few blocks over is an underlit forgotten neighborhood where residents are increasingly shoved out by the rising costs of rent.Despite this, I still find a diversity of culture, humanity, and not insignificantly, delicious food from Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, Mexico, El Salvador, Greece, Italy, the Southern United States, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Korea and so much more. This is my multicultural home. This is my America, where diversity is celebrated and people are not singled out for ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or any other pick of the week. Even the accused are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This is my America, where I can walk down the street and enjoy the benefits of an incredible library system that gives me access to immense stores of knowledge.The extant to which this ideal is realized is due to people of all races, religions and orientations who have struggled, been villified and even murdered for demanding the most basic rights. This oppression comes almost always through the complicity of unscrupioulous public officials who build their campaigns not on how they will help their constituents, but how they will align voters through fear and hate to gain power. These greedy transgressors may get elected, but I have to question how hard they will fight for anyone’s rights when they are so willing to trample them.
On the afternoon of March 4, 2011, two elderly Sikh men were gunned down while taking their daily afternoon walk in Elk Grove, California. Though hundreds of miles from where I live, it might as well have been right on my doorstep. 65 year old Surinder Singh was murdered and 78 year old Gurmej Atwal is in critical condition. There has been an increase in hate crimes since members of our society decided to target fellow citizens to an even greater degree after 9/11. Now somehow, we are supposed to answer to extremists for the crimes of other extremists? Perhaps if they cared so much about the community, they too would work, as many religious and non religious people in communities all over the country have, to seek out their fellow citizins through interfaith dialogue and events. Each hate crime is a direct attack on the diverse community of people I see every day. When an African American is stopped and harassed for walking in the "wrong" neighborhood, or when a Latino is looked at with suspicion in the land that his/her ancestors have called home long before Columbus, we are all affected. Two old men can no longer walk down the street and groups of people have their right to be here questioned, while those who spout hatred are given positions of power, and put on human rights advisory boards? Should we not speak out against them? Should we not shame these elected officials who think their constituents too feeble and stupid to make them answer for inciting hatred? Does it make sense for the Sikh community or the Muslim or African American or Latino community to be put on trial to explain the value of their existance? Or would it not be more fruitful to question the honesty of leaders who encourage divisions among us and sit with the very banking and healthcare institutions and the warmongers and the profiteers responsible for the economic hardships that have lead people to target one another?So while one group is singled out for the crimes of a few, what of the rest of you who are guilty of flagrant disregard for the sanctity of our lives? Where are your hearings on hate crimes? Where is your action to protect us from the nasty rhetoric of politicians who court hate mongers who preach death for people they could never be bothered to know? Perhaps these are the issues of a campaign worth running.