Not Senseless, Not Random: The Deadly Mix of Race, Guns and Madness
LatestIt could be terrorism, but we don’t yet know. It could be someone who has a beef with Sikhs. It’s too early to talk about gun control. These statements ran in a continuous loop through my head yesterday, even when I wasn’t watching coverage of the mass shooting at an active gurdwara in a suburb of Milwaukee. Throughout the day, the hollowness in my solar plexus signaled grief and the tightness in my throat signaled panic, and I felt deep, deep resistance to the notion of saying anything about it. What is there to say that isn’t a cliché?
Details are going to emerge in the coming days, but I already know what they’ll amount to. A white man, in his 40’s, nursing resentment over 9/11 for more than a decade, planned for a long time to kill some “enemies.” The guns will turn out to be legally acquired, or if not, so accessible as to make the law meaningless. The man will turn out to be mad. In the debate, people will argue that the cause is racism…no, it’s gun control…no, it’s mental health. It is impossible for us to navigate the deadly tangle of all three.
The Sikh community has been thrown into high visibility under the saddest possible circumstances. Sikhs are generally of Indian origin, practicing a monotheistic religion in temples called gurdwaras since the 16th century. Sikhism is not a sect of Hinduism or Islam. Sikhs grow their hair as a signal of their devotion to God.* The religion emphasizes unity and peace among all people.
I’ve known many Sikhs, though there are only 750,000 in the U.S. I’m often struck by how devout and considerate they are, regardless of age or gender. I have learned a lot by following the Sikh Coalition, as well as United Sikhs and the Sikh Activist Network. Sikhs have been a prime target for racist violence since 9/11, and this is not the first murder of a Sikh by a misinformed, angry white man. Earlier this year, 92 members of Congress pressed the FBI to start counting hate crimes against Sikhs.
Only CNN attempted continuous coverage yesterday, and I’m grateful that they tried. Yet that coverage was so generally devoid of Sikh voices that it just reminded me how ill-equipped the media are. The “expert” they turned to most often was the sincere but inadequate Eric Marrapodi of CNN’s Belief Blog. He kept saying that Sikhs were not Muslims, but were often mistaken for Muslims and “unfairly targeted.” The first time he said it, I thought, wow, that’s unfortunate phrasing and he’ll stop using it after he realizes or someone points out the implication that Muslims can be “fairly” targeted. But no one ever got a clue. Islamaphobia was never mentioned, much less condemned for the ignorance and violence that it spreads.