"He was sending her text messages and threatening her...That he was going to set her house on fire."
The suspected gunman in the shooting killed himself, police said.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. AP Photo/Julio CortezNew Jersey’s first Sikh attorney general, Gurbir Singh Grewal, was a target of disparaging remarks in 2018. Two radio hosts commented on Grewal’s Sikh identity and repeatedly referred to him as “turban man.” When called out on the offensiveness of their comments, one of them stated, “Listen, and if that offends you, then don’t wear the turban and maybe I’ll remember your name.” Listeners, activists and Sikhs around the country acted immediately by contacting the station to express their concerns. News outlets quickly picked up the story and the radio hosts were suspended. Grewal is a practicing Sikh who maintains a turban and beard. Scholars and government officials estimate the Sikh American population to number around 500,000. Nevertheless for many American Sikhs, such experiences are not uncommon. As a scholar of the tradition and a practicing Sikh myself, I have studied the harsh realities of what it means to be a Sikh in America today. I have also experienced racial slurs from a young age. The bottom line is there is little understanding of who exactly the Sikhs are and what the believe. So here’s a primer. Founder of Sikhism To start at the beginning, the founder of the Sikh tradition, Guru Nanak was born in 1469 in the Punjab region of South Asia, which is currently split between Pakistan and the northwestern area of India. A majority of the global Sikh population still resides in Punjab on the Indian side of the border. From a young age, Guru Nanak was disillusioned by the social inequities and religious hypocrisies he observed around him. He believed that a single divine force created the entire world and resided within it. In his belief, God was not separate from the world and watching from a distance, but fully present in every aspect of creation. He therefore asserted that all people are equally divine and deserve to be treated as such. To promote this vision of divine oneness and social equality, Guru Nanak created institutions and religious practices. He established community centers and places of worship, wrote his own scriptural compositions and institutionalized a system of leadership (gurus) that would carry forward his vision. The Sikh view thus rejects all social distinctions that produce inequities, including gender, race, religion and caste, the predominant structure for social hierarchy in South Asia. A community kitchen run by the Sikhs to provide free meals irrespective of caste, faith or religion, in the Golden Temple, in Punjab, India. shankar s., CC BY Serving the world is a natural expression of the Sikh prayer and worship. Sikhs call this prayerful service “seva,” and it is a core part of their practice. The Sikh identity In the Sikh tradition, a truly religious person is one who cultivates the spiritual self while also serving the communities around them – or a saint-soldier. The saint-soldier ideal applies to women and men alike. In this spirit, Sikh women and men maintain five articles of faith, popularly known as the five Ks. These are: kes (long, uncut hair), kara (steel bracelet), kanga (wooden comb), kirpan (small sword) and kachera (soldier-shorts). Although little historical evidence exists to explain why these particular articles were chosen, the 5 Ks continue provide the community with a collective identity, binding together individuals on the basis of a shared belief and practice. As I understand, Sikhs cherish these articles of faith as gifts from their gurus. Turbans are an important part of the Sikh identity. Both women and men may wear turbans. Like the articles of faith, Sikhs regard their turbans as gifts given by their beloved gurus, and its meaning is deeply personal. In South Asian culture, wearing a turban typically indicated one’s social status – kings and rulers once wore turbans. The Sikh gurus adopted the turban, in part, to remind Sikhs that all humans are sovereign, royal and ultimately equal. Sikhs in America Today, there are approximately 30 million Sikhs worldwide, making Sikhism the world’s fifth-largest major religion. Sikh Day parade on Madison Avenue, New York. AP Photo/Craig Ruttle After British colonizers in India seized power of Punjab in 1849, where a majority of the Sikh community was based, Sikhs began migrating to various regions controlled by the British Empire, including Southeast Asia, East Africa and the United Kingdom itself. Based on what was available to them, Sikhs played various roles in these communities, including military service, agricultural work and railway construction. The first Sikh community entered the United States via the West Coast during the 1890s. They began experiencing discrimination immediately upon their arrival. For instance, the first race riot targeting Sikhs took place in Bellingham, Washington, in 1907. Angry mobs of white men rounded up Sikh laborers, beat them up and forced them to leave town. The discrimination continued over the years. For instance, when my father moved from Punjab to the United States in the 1970s, racial slurs like “Ayatollah” and “raghead” were hurled at him. It was a time when 52 American diplomats and citizens were taken captive in Iran and tension between the two countries was high. These slurs reflected the racist backlash against those who fitted the stereotypes of Iranians. Our family faced a similar racist backlash when the U.S. engaged in the Gulf War during the early 1990s. The racist attacks spiked again after 9/11, particularly because Americans did not know about the Sikh religion and conflated the unique Sikh appearance with popular stereotypes of what terrorists look like. In comparison to the past decade, the rates of violence against Sikhs have surged after the election of President Donald Trump. The Sikh Coalition, the largest Sikh civil rights organization in the U.S., estimated in 2018 that Americans Sikhs were being targeted in hate crimes about once a week. AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker As a practicing Sikh, I can affirm that the Sikh commitment to the tenets of their faith, including love, service and justice, keeps them resilient in the face of hate. For these reason, for many Sikh Americans, like Gurbir Grewal, it is rewarding to maintain their unique Sikh identity. Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2018.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. Read more:As Asian Canadian scholars, we must #StopAsianHate by fighting all forms of racismExplainer: who are the Afghan Sikhs?UK role in 1984 temple raid will affect British Sikh identity Simran Jeet Singh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A pet rescue organization has shut down and its operators have been charged with animal cruelty after the Montgomery County sheriff’s office said it found cats and dogs living in “deplorable conditions.”
Alan Greenspan’s famous phrase doesn’t do justice to some current developments. Cases in point: a $100 million deli, a desperate reach for yield, and Coinbase’s mega-valuation.
SpaceX will build a lander that the US space agency will use to return humans to the Moon this decade.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in a Chicago Park Friday evening in protest and remembrance of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, whose death from a police bullet has sparked a city-wide look at use of force policies and the way officers respond to neighborhood crime.
Felix Silla, the actor best known for playing Cousin Itt on 1960s TV series 'The Addams Family,' has died at 84.
Outraged by video showing the boy with his hands in the air when police shot him dead, protesters carried signs reading “CPD, stop killing our children.”
Stocks pushed further into record territory last week, as both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) and the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) gained over 1%. Netflix has a hard act to follow after its 2020 fiscal year brought in a record-setting 37 million paying members and pushed the streaming video giant above 200 million users. Co-CEO Reed Hastings and his team will discuss the early results from their big push into feature-film releases as a natural extension of the dominant position they've built in TV series.
The stock market is now in a Power Trend, but note key warning signs too. Square and other growth plays have new handles. Will Tesla join them?
In an Instagram post Friday, singer-songwriter Angel Olsen came out as gay. “My beau, I’m gay,” she captioned a series of photos that included her partner, a tattoo, loafers and a massive bear statue. Olsen accompanied the post with a photo of herself, golden hour sunshine beaming on her smiling face, on her Instagram story. […]
President Joe Biden welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to the White House on Friday, making it the first in-person foreign leader to visit during his presidency. "I greatly appreciate the chance to spend time with you in person and to make our exchange of ideas face to face," Biden said during a formal press conference in the Rose Garden. "Last night and into the morning in Indianapolis, yet again families had to wait to hear word about the fate of their loved ones," Biden said in a statement.
Apr. 16—Confirmed COVID-19 cases jumped by 30.4 percent this week in Clark County as the disease continues to rebound from lows in early March, according to Clark County Public Health. Public Health reported one new death Friday, a woman in her 50s with underlying health conditions, pushing the county's total deaths from COVID-19 to 249. Four deaths were reported this week, up from three last ...
Apr. 16—A Thursday burglary in Starke County has led to the arrest of two Cass County men after a three-county investigation. Chad R. Weaver, 33, of Lucerne, was booked into Cass County Jail for Level 6 felony possession of methamphetamine, although the Cass County Prosecutor's Office has not officially filed charges. Billy P. Doughty, 40, of Royal Center, is in Starke County Jail, arrested on ...
Apr. 16—DELPHI — There's a saying that goes "if you build it, they will come." But the opposite is what Carroll County is currently experiencing — people have already come, so now the community needs to build homes so they have places to live. And that's why Carroll County Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Jacob Adams is calling for a community meeting. At 6 p.m. May 5, in ...
Sam Hunt married Hannah Lee Fowler in an intimate Georgia ceremony in 2017
Apr. 16—BURLINGTON — Track meets can't get any closer than the one Thursday pitting the Burlington-Edison High School boys' team against Sedro-Woolley. Sedro-Woolley came away with a razor-thin win 71-70, while the Burlington-Edison girls won 82-64. "I felt we picked up some points in the jumps and certain field events that allowed us to compensate for a rough day in the sprints on the track," ...
Apr. 16—The three most prominent coaching legends of Logansport baseball will have a meeting on the mound — in this case at Black Dog Coffee — on Saturday evening. The triumvirate of Jim Turner Sr., Butch Jones and Rich Wild will have a cup of coffee and talk about the national pastime from 6-8 p.m. Saturday at Black Dog Coffee in downtown Logansport. The event will be emceed by Mike ...
Apr. 16—Things are rapidly changing at Columbia River High School. First construction, and now a new mascot. Students at the Hazel Dell school selected Rapids to serve as the school's new nickname, effective immediately. Rapids won out over Captains in a schoolwide voting process this week. The school unveiled the name in a video recording to students Friday morning. The mascot transition ends ...
Biotech stocks tend to really put the foot on the gas when positive news hits the stands. Case in point: NovoCure (NVCR) shares surged 46% this week after the market reacted positively to an update from the late-stage study of its experimental lung cancer treatment. The company announced that following a review of interim data, an independent data monitoring committee (DMC) had concluded that Novocure could accelerate the study after no evidence of increased systemic toxicity was displayed in the data from 210 patients. The committee informed Novocure it will not need to reach 534 patients with 18 months of follow-up. It is now just required to evaluate 276 patients with a follow-up time of 12 months. Novocure's tumor-treating field (TTFields) technology comes in the form of a body-worn device which uses electrical fields and disrupts cancer cell division – cancer grows via this process - without affecting healthy cells. The testing is being done combining TTFields with cancer drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors. If proved a success, it could be highly lucrative in the treatment of lung cancer - in the U.S. alone, around 93,000 people are diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) every year. J.P. Morgan’s Cory Kasimov was taken aback by the news. “Novocure's update came as a major surprise and clearly appears favorable for the ultimate probability of success for the Phase 3 LUNAR study in lung cancer,” Kasimov noted. “That said, the press release lacks sufficient details to suggest that success is a foregone conclusion.” While Kasimov understands the optimism and increases the treatment’s POS (possibility of success) in NSCLC from 45% to 70%, the analyst recommends investors proceed with caution. “Overall, we see this as a favorable development but maintain our Neutral (i.e., Hold) rating based on the several nuances associated with the trial design and limited details in the press release…but mostly because of the prevailing valuation,” the 5-star analyst summed up. Kasimov remains on the sidelines with a $103 price target, implying shares will retreat by 47% over the next 12 months. (To watch Kasimov’s track record, click here) Turning now to the rest of the Street, other analysts expect shares to remain range-bound for the foreseeable future as indicated by the $190.14 average price target. (See NVCR stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for biotech stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
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