Sikhs and mistaken identity
BY ELEANOR NESBITT
APRIL 29TH 2016
... Since 9/11 Sikhs haven’t just been verbally insulted but have suffered ‘reprisal attacks’. Over three hundred attacks were estimated in the USA in the first month alone. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a gas-station owner in Arizona, was killed only four days later. Attackers connect beards and turbans with Islam and terrorism. In 2012 in Wisconsin, a white supremacist killed six people in Oak Creek gurdwara (place of worship) and wounded three others ...
Sikhs commemorate the Vaisakhi festival of 1699 which is regarded as the birthday of the Khalsa ... Sikh families worldwide celebrate Vaisakhi in April, with larger than usual congregations and impressive street processions. These are headed by the enthroned volume of scripture, attended by five men, usually dressed identically in orange and white ...
In April each year, very early on Vaisakhi day, candidates continue to be initiated into the Khalsa ... One of the Ks, the kesh (hair), involves keeping one’s God-given form intact by not shortening or removing hair from any part of the body. Indeed, not only initiated Khalsa Sikhs, but also many Sikhs who have not made this formal commitment, keep their hair and beard uncut.
For male Sikhs their turban is the crown which – together with their kesh – symbolises their faith, inseparable from their identity ... Many initiated women too, nowadays express the Sikh emphasis on equality by wearing a turban ...
http://blog.oup.com/2016/04/sikhs-and-mistaken-identity/
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