The Day My Skin Came Off

[natsilahk]

http://www.racewire.org/archives/2007/02/t...came_off_1.html

In this piece, Sonny Suchdev, an activist and member of Outernational, a progressive 5-member band, writes about the time he crumpled to pieces in a New York subway after having his turban ripped off his head by a stranger.

When I was in the fifth grade, a classmate yanked off my dastar, my turban, on the playground one day, perhaps because it seemed funny to him. I will never forget how I felt walking around school the rest of the day with the black cloth of my dastar hanging off my joora, a Punjabi word for bun, because I didn’t know how to put it back on. Humiliated. Enraged. So so alone.

Now seventeen years later it’s the same <admin-profanity filter activated>.

I’m riding the F train like usual in Brooklyn when dozens of kids – perhaps in junior high – get in my subway car on their way home from school. The train is bustling with adolescent energy.

As the train stops at 4th Avenue, I hear a boy yell “Give me that!” as he and his friends run out the train door. The next thing I realize, my dastar has been yanked completely off my head. My uncovered joora dangles, and I am in complete and utter shock. Everyone on the train is staring at me. Other kids from the school are both laughing and shaking their heads in disbelief. Not knowing how to react, I stand up quickly, look out the doors of the train car and see a group of young boys of color running down the stairs. Startled and confused, I pick it up my dastar from the grimy platform and get back in the train.

One of the boys of color across the car from me asks, “Are you okay?” Two other boys he is with high five each other as they laugh and say things that I can’t understand. An older South Asian man sitting across from me just shakes his head and doesn’t make eye contact with me.

I get off at Smith and 9th Street with my dirty dastar in my hands, not knowing what to do. My eyes fill with tears immediately. I feel naked and exposed, so small, so humiliated, and so so alone. Why did he do that? Why? Was it fun for him? Did he impress his friends? Does it make him feel like he has more power than someone else – someone who looks like an immigrant, a foreigner, Bin Laden? I am so enraged. I want to break something, I want to beat the crap out of him. My arms keep shaking uncontrollably as if they’re ready to explode. I walk towards the back of the raised platform and thrust my elbow into the phone booth. The pain that vibrates into my elbow and throughout my arm somehow makes me feel like I accomplished something.

I get to a corner of the platform and break down in despair, remembering fifth grade vividly, feeling so angry and exhausted from living in this country. The twenty something years of this <admin-profanity filter activated> is going through me at once – the slurs, the obnoxious stares, the go back to your countries, the threats, the towel/rag/tomato/condom/tumor heads, all of it. But somehow pulling off my turban hurts more than anything. Maybe it’s the symbolism of my identity wrapped up in this one piece of cloth that, like my brown skin, I wear everyday.

I think about the Sikh gurus who were tortured and killed by emperors in India because of their religious identities, their turbans forcibly removed and their scalps cut off for refusing to cut their hair and give up their identities.

I think about the thousands of Sikhs brutally murdered by state-sponsored programs in northern India in 1984. Balbir Singh Sodhi shot dead in Phoenix on September 15, 2001 by a self-identified “patriot.” And all the young turban-wearing boys in this country being harassed and humiliated at their schools on a daily basis. I didn’t have this sort of analysis in fifth grade, but on an emotional level I’m still that nine-year-old on the playground right now.

I try to put my dastar back on but it’s too windy. Eventually I get it on messily, cross over to the Coney Island-bound platform, and go home, wishing for the comfort of someone who has gone through this, someone who might understand.

I am now remembering the words of one of the young boys of color in the train as I walked off: “Stay up,” he said, wishing me the strength to not let this hurt me. As I step back from the pain, I think the greatest tragedy is why people of color are doing this to each other. 17 years ago on the playground it was a black boy as well. Somehow it’s more hurtful when other people of color target me than when white people do. With white people, I often go straight to anger, but with folks of color, it’s hard not to feel hopeless. The way this white supremacist system pits black people and immigrants against each other is truly tragic.

But, I will do my best to “Stay up” until the next time.

[kaur_khalistani_lioness]

very emotional messge.

but i have som questions? :lol:

why do we expect kids to know the value of an individual at that age? why do we want kids of color to understand us? do we think that they are educated about their own history very well? why do we not think of them and ourselves as th same.

what if that kid was from a sikh family? but just out of fun he did that? or the reasons provided by the writer...the need to feel empowered, need to

Was it fun for him? Did he impress his friends?

what would one do? would u let him/her run like that? what would u guys do? and why do we think that the kid has a color or is froma diff race and u can't say something to him just like u would to a kid who kinda looked indian or punjabi who would knwo about pug?

dont we have some kids who are from sikh family say stuff about our turban? dont we have some people in punjab humiliate others like that?

why let someone humiliate you? why feel embarrassed by someone's act? i would rather feel sad for those who did it. and would feel the need to ask the kids ...what did u get out of it? when they see u not being embarrassed they will feel stupid. its the act and their desire to make their victim vulnerable...and they get this sense of empowerment out of it. so if one is kool abouyt it and dont let them get the "best" out of u or their desired outcome...u will be amazed how dumb the kid would feel. (mybe even agnry)

some people know when we are embarrassed or look for ways they can humiliate us or they kinda have a way of knowing our fears ...its really interesting ...and they feed on it to help satisfy their selves.

if u let them they will....

have u evry tried to mess with a person who looks so strong and u know that he/she has that selfrespect which would be hard to break no matter what u do? u know u can;t rreally do much to break that person. its bit similr. hope we all get smething good out of this.

anther thing:

this is crazy (in a freekin way) but for few days i have encountered so many of Bob Dylan's words/lyrics (songs etc). i wasn't sure why...

i think it could be applied here.

quote frm him "Be kind, because everyone is fighting a hard battle"

when i was reading this post those words came to me. my mind just connected those words to this situation...

if we look at it carefully those kids who knocked his turban off ...have their own issue=battle to fight. to me its like wow only if i can think that way every time someone does something that it soo

wouldn't it be kool to think that way...and just have that understanding that we all have issues i mean that we all are going through stuff and tryin to fill that void in us by tryin to do things without thinking. some of us rarely stop to reflect on what we are about to do.

just my thoughts about that persons experiences.

a reminder for myself init...that we all are in this battle of some sort with our own self(?) im sure some of us will find what Guru sahib has to say about this..and how he kinda does agree.

so again

BE KIND, FOR EVERYONE YOU MEET IS FIGHTING A HARD BATTLE

and now i i have googled it to find the exact words...i see that some say even Plato said those words. well great thinkers do think a like...or at least agree on the same things by experience. =)

so what do u guys think?

bhul chuk muaf karni

waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguru ji ki fateh!

[natsilahk]

I definetly agree with what your saying, but thats the reason why the writer says its "hopeless" when people of color, or even our own make fun of us.

When I go to Canada, and even parts of Punjab now, lots of kids born into sikh families call me "Giani" or the little ones say "stupid joora-head". What can I feel about this, other than to feel hopeless?

I can try to educate him? That way when he goes back to his father, his father will tell him that I'm just an extremist?

Everytime a black person has ever said anything to me, I don't know how to react, you just have a huge disappointment, and a sense of hopelessness. And that is what the author is trying to write about, the White Supramicst system tries to keep miniorities different from each other, and unrelated, so that these types of events happen.

And beyond that, Sikhs like the author feel so-so alone from even thier own community. You go and tell this story to an amritdhari, and he says "Oh man, you need to be stronger, dont be so weak!" "You shouldnt feel hopeless, you shouldnt cry, we are lions!" ...because not everyone goes thru the same experiences. I remember when I was growing up and some Khalsa kids called me weak when I told them my mom said I could cut my hair if I wish. It gets you feeling alone, that no one in the world understands you. All you have is the Guru Granth Sahib, but sometimes, you need a partner, someone with a similar struggle. Thats why the Khalsa formed. It took individualistic goals and made them forever so one could find people with a similar cause. Saint Soldiers.

[thedoc]

This awful experience I similarly went through at school, in the Uk, in the late 70s and early 80s. My heart is with Sonny Suchdev.

When one is de-crowned by a fellow human.....one feels extremely traumatised. It is tantamount to rape.

In my case, a black boy ripped off my dastaar and just stood there, laughing. On a second occasion, a black girl took a full swipe at my dastaar and it went hurtling down the school stairs. In my case...it led to cutting my hair and yes...the taunts stopped and i felt better. However, the Guru is mysterious. Some 25 years later, I have grown my kesh have re-donned the crown and am waiting for Guru Jee to bless me with amrit.

After the experience with blacks at school, I started to think they were sub-human....a group of bandars and developed intense hatred for them. However, the Guru has taught me that to have this hate is destructive and such thoughts I've let go of.

Sonny....be strong my brother, nurture your strength of spirit. I know it is really hard....but the guru is infinite. The Guru will hug you and sooth your mind. Stand tall my friend........

Satnam Waheguru.

[akitosforever]

Man....this is sad.

Im in India and Im glad that the scene is not so bad here...although wiked mind is everywhere but people atleast know that we have hair inside the piece of Cloth, and we are damn serious abt it.

These are the real moments of weakness....and very difficult to overcome.

This is a little off-hook but the master communicator Tony Robbins talks in his Books about Changing the Mind Set from one stage to other in matter of Minutes.That has worked for me a lot of times especially in times of Distress.

The ultimate way to overcome such situation is of course SGGS ...but in such times you need something quite immidiately before you become very week.

Following gurmat practices will make us all strong in some time ...but this what I just mentioned, could be a little helpful in real uptight situations.

WJKK WJKF.