californiasardar1

No, the fertility rate can be below 1.0

Who cares about any of this? If we are looking at real Sikhs (i.e. exclude monay), then the fertility rate is far below 1.6 The real fertility rate is like 0.003 or something Sikhs have already been reduced to a fringe group, and things will only get worse in the coming decades

These forums are filled with short-sighted people who spend most of their time rehashing right wing talking points because they are annoyed that some minority group that they don't like is being accommodated. These people are apparently too dimwitted to understand that they themselves are part of a tiny minority group whose beliefs most people would consider bizarre and fringe. Why are you people so stirred up by your hatred/dislike/distaste/intolerance for various groups? Why are you more inspired by these feelings than by feelings of love and acceptance? And even if you are a sad person who is more inspired by feelings of resentment and hate than you are by love, shouldn't you at least by rational enough to understand that you are part of a tiny, fringe minority and it is in your self-interest to promote a society that is inclusive and tolerant?

I suppose the west would be a better place if it was not "inclusive." I'm sure you would love to live in a society that does not accommodate your minority beliefs, background, and way of life.

You already trim your beard, so who cares? Punjabi girls who will only consider guys with cut hair and/or trimmed beards are pathetic anyway. Why try so hard to impress pathetic people? I would rather die alone than sell out my beliefs.

Why do you have a trimmed beard? Instead of coming to the UK, I advise that you stay in India.

It just shows how pathetic the Sikh quam is that the taliban look more like Sikhs than 99% of Sikhs.

It doesn't matter. The Taliban are being portrayed all over the news as villains. All of the news reports are about how horrible it is that these turbanned, bearded, stone age savages have once again taken control of Afghanistan. Also, right wing news will start going on about Afghani refugees, making people even more wary of anyone who they perceive to be Afghani.

Oh give me a break I can just imagine it now: some hick sees a Singh and feels like saying something foul. Then he thinks to himself, "Wait a second, that turban might not be a taliban turban ... it shows a bit less forehead and covers the ears ... also, it's not black or white, it's saffron ... maybe he's Sikh! No, actually, I read on sikhsangat.com the other day that the official Sikh colors were blue and basanti yellow, not saffron, so he's probably not Sikh ... hmmm ...." Basically the only people who notice the subtle differences between different turban styles are ... wait for it ... people who actually wear turbans themselves

Do you honestly think that Americans can even tell the differences between the different styles? Or care about the differences? What a joke. Most "Sikhs" these days can't even tell the difference between different pagh styles.

Who cares?

Now that villains with long beards and turbans are once again dominating the American news cycle, I think singhs who are living in America need to be on guard. The backlash is coming. Stay safe brothers.

Months later, the photo is still up Sadly, I can't even say that I am surprised

Wow, they have like 7 profiles. This is really going to make a big impact!

I never said anything about life for Sikhs in the UK in the 70s, I was talking about the present day. I understand and respect the struggles that you all went through to get to the position where you are today. But I hope you all don't lose sight of the fact that the freedom and status that Sikhs enjoy in the UK today is very far from the norm. Sikhs in the US today are fighting battles that were settled in the UK decades ago (and without the benefit of a population density that gives Sikhs in the UK at least some visibility and political sway). But forget about the US. You don't have to go that far, you can just cross the English channel and see how precarious the position of Sikhs is in continental Europe. Thanks for giving details about the grooming issue. Do you think this had to do with Labour being more concerned about the Muslim vote (as Muslims former a larger voting block than Sikhs) or political correctness? Or both? I concede that leftists sometimes go to far with political correctness and "canceling" in order to try to show how "fair" and "unbigoted" they are. I am not going to question your take on the whole grooming issue. You know more about that than I do. But that seems to be a very specific situation in the UK. I stand by my general point that left-leaning people are by far the most likely to support the rights of vulnerable minorities (which is the category that Sikhs fall under almost everywhere). I don't buy your point about a backlash to "wokeness" at all. I don't think that that is what is causing the growing popularity of far-right movements. The way information is shared and distorted today is radically different from what was the norm not very long ago, and that has been the game-changer that has led to today's division and polarization. You seem to think that if the "woke" people would just be quiet, the racists would not have a "rallying cry". That is simply not true. First of all, those people will ALWAYS find something to complain about. (That has certainly been true throughout American history. If it has been less true in UK history, that is probably because the white British majority did not feel threatened by a sizable minority until relatively recently. See my second point.) Second of all, the complaints of the more hardcore right-wing racists increasingly resonate with the more "passive" racists as the majority community diminishes in size and feels more threatened. And third of all, as I alluded to before, today's media/information landscape will allow for any complaints to blow up and go viral. Any time anyone from the non-majority community asks for anything, no matter how reasonable, there is going to be a backlash from the majority community. And in many instances, the non-majority community doesn't even have ask for anything or complain about anything to provoke a backlash. Their mere existence is enough. This is what history has shown us.

Okay, in what sense did they turn a blind eye? Are you referring to a failure to identify the grooming gangs as coming primarily from the Muslim community, or something more than that? UK Sikhs take a lot of things for granted because the mainstream British community has (at this point) largely accepted them, and because their population density makes it possible to have some political influence. In places like the US, the Sikhs are in a much more precarious situation. If you try to argue to someone that, for example, a Sikh police officer should be able to wear a turban and maintain a beard, the vast majority of the public will think asking for such an exemption is completely absurd and that it is ridiculous to accommodate some tiny, fringe group of people who they have never heard of. Most people will voice opinions along the lines of "if they can't conform to the dress code, they should find a different job." Do you know the type of people who are (by far) the most likely to come out and say that that's not right and that a Sikh in that situation should be accommodated? The leftists who you people are so quick to deride. "Wokeness" has its excesses, but "woke" people are generally much greater allies to minority communities like Sikhs than the right-wing majoritarian communities that for some reason you guys don't seem concerned about.

I hope you realize that the "woke liberal sjw" people who you are are always railing against are the people who are most likely to defend the rights of Sikhs to practice their faith openly and freely (i.e., keep their kesh, wear dastars, wear the panj kakkars, etc., and be accommodated by their employers to do so). The "non-woke" people tend to think that fringe groups like the Sikhs should go back to wear they came from if they don't want to live like the "mainstream." But for some reason, people like you want to spend your time complaining about those who, whatever faults they may have, are generally our strongest allies.

You guys are criticizing Sikh charity organizations for helping out people who are not Sikhs. But here is what you fail to realize: if those organizations focused strictly on Sikhs, they would raise only a tiny fraction of the money that they currently are able to raise (in particular, they would raise much less money from Sikhs than they currently raise). When an organization is seen to be helping all kinds of people, it makes others want to donate to it. When it is seen to be helping only Sikhs, it is viewed as a fringe organization supporting fringe causes. Anyway, regardless of the choices that various charity organizations make, the amount of benefit to the Sikh community would end up being the same. It is what it is.

That sounds plausible It's not like the other things they were doing were in line with Sikhi

Other "apnay" bullying him is exactly what I suspect. I've mentioned in other threads the tendency of monay kids to make fun of boys who keep their kesh. But some Canadians insisted that that was not possible, and monay in fact go out of their way to protect singhs (who allegedly can't protect themselves because they don't have the same fighting spirit and bravery that monay do --- not because they are children who are hopelessly outnumbered). Edit: Here is the post from the Canadian guy

This is not true. I have been to a lot of Sikh weddings. The tradition is for the groom's family to pay $500 to some guy who recently arrived from India to tie a red turban on him.

me too!

How is it possible that he was bullied in Abbotsford? Aren't there loads of Punjabis there? And (according to various Canadian monay on here) don't monay go around defending helpless Singhs and making sure they are not picked on?

Vague? I've never been vague about it Have a laugh at that if you want, but I'm out of the gene pool now and that means one less Sikh family in the future. When your grandchildren are forbidden from wearing dastars by the government of whatever country they will be living in, I'm sure the monay who haven't had a singh in their family tree for 100 years will help them.

What a disgrace