Current Events

Making New York City Safer & Better

Dr PRABHJOT SINGH

It has been a year since I was attacked near my home in Harlem.

My fractured jaw has healed, and I walk freely in my neighborhood. People who I have not seen in a long time, and new people I meet, still ask me if I am okay, if my family is okay.

Today is my son's second birthday, and this weekend we will celebrate with friends in Central Park.

As I reflect on the past year of my life, I think it’s fair to say that things were just on the verge of returning to how they used to be.

However, over the past two weeks, my sense of comfort and my illusion of “normalcy” have been shattered. In the past two weeks, two men who vaguely resemble me were physically attacked, just like I was. Their attackers called them the same names as they brutalized them.

Both targets, like myself, ended up in the hospital.

The attack on Dr. Jaspreet Singh Batra evoked a sense of deja vous -- a doctor like myself being called a terrorist and then attacked by a group of young people. After being verbally abused, his mother watched it all take place.

They were attacked, ironically, for the same visible articles of faith that commits them to a path of justice, compassion and service.

The other victim, Sandeep Singh, barely survived and is still recovering from a hate crime that reminded me of James Byrd being dragged for 3 miles under a car in 1998 by white supremacists in Texas.

We like to think that such bigoted violence happens elsewhere, not at home. But all this took place in the here and now, in New York City, the most metropolitan city in this country.

Both Sandeep Singh and Dr. Jaspreet Singh were targeted for the same reasons that I was and their stories are very similar to mine. Over the past year, I have been thinking about what kind of problem we are facing and what we can do to resolve it so that my 2-year old has a better New York City to call home.

Although we are dealing with a tough and serious problem, I am encouraged by the fact that there are common sense solutions.

The problem starts with an environment in which verbal assault is commonplace in school, on the street, even in the workplace -- occasionally even from patients in the hospital. This is the pressure cooker where, if a person calmly but assertively stands up for themselves in the face of bigotry, as Dr. Jaspreet Singh and Sandeep Singh did, situations combust.

That's just how things were.

Here are my thoughts on how things should be:

*   When my son starts school, I should not have to worry that the anti-bullying laws
enacted 10 years ago to benefit all American kids are ignored. As parents, my wife and I will teach him how to firmly stand up for himself, to be generous and confident, to take the hard path to do the right thing. But beyond that, I will send him to class everyday trusting that the school systems will take care of him.

I am disheartened to know that the city has not succeeded in making our schools safe places for our children, and I expect some leadership to come forward and devise some solutions.

Failing our children is not an option.

As Rajdeep Singh of The Sikh Coalition has suggested, the City needs to take the lead on organizing task force to take on violence and discrimination, and this should start with our children.

*    When I walk on the streets, I want to trust the police force that is supposed to protect me. I was outraged to hear that Sandeep Singh's brother had to leave his brother’s bedside to collect video footage of the hate crime from a bodega. We should all be outraged.

I’m reminded that the organization from which we are seeking help – the New York Police Department (“NYPD”) – discriminates against us in the workplace. To this day, I would not be allowed to serve in the NYPD because of how I look, because of my articles of faith. What kind of message does this send to the community?

The trust of a community hangs in the balance. Our nation's capital does not have this problem – they let Sikhs serve on the police force – this is the kind of problem that has a simple solution.

Let Sikhs serve in the NYPD.

*    When I work in my neighborhood, where we are trying to improve our neighbors’ health by hiring and training those around us, I want to know that my city is doing what it can to build solidarity amongst communities with different backgrounds and histories, large and small.

In my work in Harlem, I know that pretty much everyone knows everyone. People know who attacked me, even though most are at large. I am sure that is the case in Roosevelt Island where Dr. Jaspreet Singh was attacked, and in Queens, where Sandeep Singh was attacked.

We don't always need heavy-handed interventions to bring closure to conflict, or constructive solutions to challenging problems. The assailants should come forward. They should know that taking responsibility is the start of the right thing to do. They should know it is an opportunity to start walking on the right path.

But these opportunities don't just come out of thin air, they require the organizing power and status only our City leaders can provide.

In short, take care of our kids, and teach them while they are listening. Stop discriminating against Sikhs who want to join the NYPD and let's address a common challenge.

Finally, show us the city-wide leadership that brings out the best in our diverse communities through a taskforce that can solve problems in ways that people like Sandeep Singh and Dr. Jaspreet Singh find constructive solutions and bring closure for both them and their assailants.

Justice and compassion come hand in hand. But without justice, compassion is seen as naïve when history repeats. Without compassion, justice is another form of punishment we inflict upon each other.

This is not a Sikh problem, although Sikhs are being attacked. This is a human problem, a New York City problem, and an American problem about how we take responsibility for each other.

I hope that Mayor De Blasio and Police Commissioner Chief Bratton will follow through on meeting with us to find a productive way forward.

We can't afford to be satisfied with how things are at this point, and we must resolve to progress, for the sake of ourselves and for our children.


[Courtesy: The Sikh Coalition. Edited for sikhchic.com]
August 17, 2014
 

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