I was born and raised in a place that many of you may have heard of before. It's called Texas. We were my brothers and I were some of the only turban wearing kids in all of South Texas. And so we stuck out everywhere we went. People had questions for us. Sometimes they were kind and curious and innocuous. But sometimes they weren't so kind and that's how innocuous. So one of the challenges becomes, well, why do I have to live this way? Do I have to make this choice of choosing to look different and making my life harder? Another piece of it is when there is so much attention on you because of how you look. There are real
Being a Sikh in America gives Simran Jeet Singh a very particular insight into the divisions that run between us: on one hand, his visible differences have made him a target for racism; on the other, his religion emphasises the connectedness of all humans, and urges him towards compassion, forgiveness and love.
In this thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation, Katherine and Simran explore building empathy, seeing the divine in everyone, and how being forced to confront white supremacy has helped Simran to develop a language to challenge those who would attack him. The Sikh value of Chardi Kala is hard to miss here: the sense of everlasting optimism that propels him forward.
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