Tuesday morning of September 11, 2001, the people of the United States awakened to the tragic events occurring in New York City. The nation became paralyzed as hijacked planes collided into the country’s beloved Twin Towers, crumbling down within a matter of seconds. 15 years ago, the United States faced a major terrorist attack, with over 3,000 deaths and evidently bringing out rage within the citizens against these assassins. However, many Sikh Americans are often targets of revenge and experience discrimination because of their physical appearance and their similarities with Muslims. In the United States, there are limits on the media coverage that Sikh Americans are allotted on a daily basis, which essentially undermines the discrimination that many of them still face today.

Sikh Americans have been the victims of discrimination on the basis of their physical appearance since the 9/11 attacks first occurred. According the religion of Sikhism, men (and sometimes women) wear turbans around their heads in order to protect their uncut hair. Because of this image, they are often mistaken as Muslims, and thus are sufferers of many hate crimes. According to the Sikh Coalition, within the first month of the 9/11 attacks, over three hundred cases had been reported regarding the violence and discrimination that these followers faced in school, the workplace, and even the general public. The first incident occurred just four days after the attacks. The victim, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh-American was killed by 42 year-old Frank Silva Roque, who had suffered sorrow from the deaths of many Americans. According to Roque’s brother and wife, his grief fueled the anger inside of him and he openly announced that “[He was] going to go out and shoot some towel-heads”. The next day, Roque didn’t show up to work and instead got drunk at a local bar, gained access to a gun, and shot Sodhi outside of a gas station he owned. This incident is unfortunately not unique nor uncommon, and instead it marked the beginning of hate crimes experienced by Sikhs within the United States. With the number of cases increasingly growing of racial discrimination, the Sikh Americans came together after the 9/11 attacks and created the Sikh Coalition in order to mourn over the losses experienced, document the crimes experienced yearly, and to also educate others regarding their faith. Despite being the world’s fifth largest religion, many Americans still remain uneducated regarding this faith with the assumption that Sikhs and Muslims are related faiths. Another example of this lack of knowledge occurred in December of last year at Sikh temple, or gurudwara, in Buena Park where it was defaced overnight. The offender was a man who was allegedly visiting from Texas and hid in his car overnight in order to vandalize the temple. The culprit was never identified or convicted, but he did leave many incoherent messages, such as “ISIS” on both the building and cars in a parking lot. Despite this message, the Buena Park police refused to identify this offense as a hate crime because of the lack of evidence presented. This situation exemplifies the lack of knowledge that Americans having regarding the religion of Sikhism. Even after 15 years,  many Sikhs are still trying to educate people about their faith regarding mistaken identity.

Although there is a lack of accurate representation in the media, many members of Sikhism use media outlets to spread awareness about their religion and values. In September of 2012, a photo of Balpreet Kaur began circulating the internet after a man took a picture of her with the caption of “I’m not sure what to conclude from this” and posted it onto Reddit. Similar to many other Sikh females, Kaur had facial hair, which caused a roar of laughter to arise from the Internet as people mocked her physical appearance. Soon enough, the post had gained popularity and one of Kaur’s friends informed her regarding this unexpected criticism against her. However, instead of feeling humiliated, Kaur used this experience to educate others about her faith and she quickly responded to the negative comments with a graceful response. In her message, she states how she is “a baptized Sikh with facial hair… [she] realizes that [her] gender is often confused and [she] looks different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body – it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being…”.  In this message, not only does Kaur display that she is confident in her faith and the way she presents herself, but turns her unexpected popularity into a way to provide a valuable lesson to all the uneducated people out there. However, Kaur is not the only Sikh to use her social media platform as a way to provide knowledge to others regarding her belief. One such example recently occurred with comedian and YouTube star, Jasmeet Singh, also known as Jus Reign. On his way back to his hometown, Toronto, Singh was stopped by security guards at the San Francisco Airport, who refused to let him board his flight unless he removed his turban for some additional screening. Singh respectfully obeyed their requests and was taken to a private screening room for additional tests. After finding nothing dangerous in his turban, security let him go despite delaying him for half an hour. Before leaving, Singh asked for a mirror in order to tie his turban back. However, they refused to provide a mirror and instead stated that he could walk to the nearest public restroom. In the eyes of many Americans, this situation seems like a simple conversation, but to Sikhs, it depicts a wide scope of emotions ranging from insensitivity to the absence of respect and disregard towards their religion. Due to their lack of compliance, Singh was forced to walk across the terminal, turbanless with his hair partially uncovered, an offensive situation to Sikhs. After the surreal experience, Singh used humor in order to explain and inform others regarding the lack of sensitivity of the security agents within the whole situation. This incident that occurred to Singh is actually the second case within two weeks. Days prior to Singh’s situation, model and actor Waris Ahluwalia was also refused boarding for a flight back to NYC in order to attend a fashion show. Although these influential Sikhs tried exposing citizens towards their faith, there is still a long way to go.

Exactly 15 years ago, the citizens of the United States were paralyzed from shock after experiencing the 9/11 attacks. This eventually led to many attacks against religious groups, specifically Sikh Americans because of their physical appearance. Although Sikhism is the fifth largest religion in the world, many Americans still remain ignorant to the values of this faith. The lack of representation in social media hinders this knowledge from entering the minds of others. With more media coverage and the correct education, there can be a stop to all these hate crimes.