While a motive for last week’s rampage at a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis remains under investigation, members of the Sikh community say they feel collective trauma and believe more must be done to combat years of bigotry, bias and violence.
Leaders and members of the Sikh community are also channeling their grief into demands for gun reform and tougher hate crime statutes.
“We are time and time again disproportionately facing senseless and often very targeted attacks,” said Satjeet Kaur, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, a New York-based group that has urged investigators to examine bias as a possible motive in the shootings. Kaur said that as a relatively young faith with a low population in the Western world, Sikhism is generally not taught in schools to the same extent as other global religions or integrated in policy-making, resulting in misunderstanding and ignorance. Anti-Sikh discrimination can manifest itself in everything from schoolyard bullying to verbal attacks to shocking acts of violence.
There are between 8,000 and 10,000 Sikh Americans in Indiana, where they began settling more than 50 years ago and opened their first house of worship, known as a gurdwara, in 1999. Dhaliwal expressed hope that the tragedy will inspire others to better understand the religion and cultural practices: “To all my fellow Americans, whether Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, Jewish, non-religious people, everyone: Google the word ‘Sikh’ today. ... Devote five minutes of your time to be aware about another people around you who may not look like you.”
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