Ridin' Derpy
I'm getting tired of the Sikhs-get-mistaken-for-Muslims trope, which is what we've been hearing frequently since last weekend's shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. It's what we often heard after the many other attacks against Sikhs that have occurred in the last dozen or so years. In exactly how many cases do we know for sure that the victims were indeed mistaken for Muslims, that Muslims were in fact the intended targets? Wade Michael Page, the Wisconsin shooter, is too dead to comment on his motives now, but that hasn't stopped journalists from implying that the shooting was motivated by anti-Muslim hatred. The trope persists.
I'm tired of the trope for two reasons. The first is that it implies that Muslims are a more legitimate target than Sikhs. Muslims are violent, the implication goes, so it makes sense that some people would respond in kind. Sikhs are not violent, so it's absurd that anyone would attack them. Over 2 billion Muslims have the joy of being associated with the crimes of a few. We of course don't associate all Christians with the rape of children, apartheid, or the bloodshed in the Balkans, even if many were involved in those crimes. We of course don't associate all Jews with the sinking of the USS Liberty, the bloodlust of the Stern Gang, or collective punishment in the Gaza Strip, although plenty of Jews were complicit in those crimes. But when Muslims commit crimes, we generalize. Surely those Sikhs were mistakenly targeted in response to 9/11, the thinking goes.
The second reason I'm tired of that trope is that it credits white supremacists with a greater level of humanity than they deserve. By assuming their Sikh victims were mistaken for Muslims (along with all of the stereotypes about Sikhs and Muslims that go with that), it assumes that their violence is in response to a grievance. However misdirected, the response was an act of revenge. History should teach us otherwise. It hasn't taken much to provoke white supremacists to act violently: attending a church, going to school, opening a store, having a job, not having a job, making eye contact with a white woman...or simply existing. Maybe the problem with those Sikhs was not that they evoked images of falling skyscrapers, but simply that they were there, stubbornly continuing to exist.
Unless we know without a doubt that that an act of violence against Sikhs was meant to hurt Muslims, we should reject this narrative. The trope demonizes Muslims at the same time that it paints a better picture of white supremacists than they deserve.
I'm tired of the trope for two reasons. The first is that it implies that Muslims are a more legitimate target than Sikhs. Muslims are violent, the implication goes, so it makes sense that some people would respond in kind. Sikhs are not violent, so it's absurd that anyone would attack them. Over 2 billion Muslims have the joy of being associated with the crimes of a few. We of course don't associate all Christians with the rape of children, apartheid, or the bloodshed in the Balkans, even if many were involved in those crimes. We of course don't associate all Jews with the sinking of the USS Liberty, the bloodlust of the Stern Gang, or collective punishment in the Gaza Strip, although plenty of Jews were complicit in those crimes. But when Muslims commit crimes, we generalize. Surely those Sikhs were mistakenly targeted in response to 9/11, the thinking goes.
The second reason I'm tired of that trope is that it credits white supremacists with a greater level of humanity than they deserve. By assuming their Sikh victims were mistaken for Muslims (along with all of the stereotypes about Sikhs and Muslims that go with that), it assumes that their violence is in response to a grievance. However misdirected, the response was an act of revenge. History should teach us otherwise. It hasn't taken much to provoke white supremacists to act violently: attending a church, going to school, opening a store, having a job, not having a job, making eye contact with a white woman...or simply existing. Maybe the problem with those Sikhs was not that they evoked images of falling skyscrapers, but simply that they were there, stubbornly continuing to exist.
Unless we know without a doubt that that an act of violence against Sikhs was meant to hurt Muslims, we should reject this narrative. The trope demonizes Muslims at the same time that it paints a better picture of white supremacists than they deserve.