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Wisconsin Sikhs Mourn Charleston Victims Of Latest Racist Terror

SARA SIDNER, GLEN DACY, and ALBERTO MOYA, CNN

 

 

 





Oak Creek, Wisconsin, USA

When Pardeep Singh Kaleka heard about the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, grief and terror came flooding back to him.

For nearly three years he has had to live with sorrow and uncertainty, ever since the day a gunman opened fire on a Sikh congregation at the Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

"That day six people lost their life and one suffered significant injuries and is in a vegetative state to this day," Pardeep said. "My dad was one of them."

Like the nine African-Americans shot to death last week at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church, the Sikhs of the gurdwara in Oak Creek were victims of hatred.

Pardeep's father, Satwant Singh, was president and one of the founding members of the gurdwara in this Milwaukee suburb. He was fatally shot in the August 5, 2012 attack while trying to fight off the white supremacist terrorist.

The gunman killed himself with a bullet to the head after police shot him in the stomach.

To honor his father, Pardeep Singh wrought a legacy out of the horror.

"It's made me a better husband, father, a better activist, a better person overall," the son said.

But the sense of safety has changed. Guards are posted at the gurdwara these days. And the attack left deep psychological scars on the survivors and the families of the victims.

"No longer can I just assume that it's going to end up well. I sometimes assume it's going to be the worst. For me, tattooed white males set off some kind of trigger in me where I'm like, oh, OK, that person is going to start shooting up the Starbucks. The mall. There's an assumption of guilt. That is tragic that we have to live like that.

"But to me it's beautiful that we have to live like that. Because I take nothing for granted," he said.

He has also taken it upon himself to learn more about the mentality responsible for that terrible day in 2012.

"We as a society need to be fearless. You know, I didn't want to understand white supremacist ideology right after this happened. But then I had to say, OK, be courageous and see what is behind some of this hate. And a lot of times, you find out what is behind hate is fear," he said.

Pardeep used to be a police officer. He is a first-generation immigrant whose parents brought him to this country from Punjab. The couple sought a better life for their children. His parents worked very hard for it.

"When [my father] was deceased I looked at his hands and I saw all the callouses that were on them," he said. "And you looked down at his feet and you see how hard they probably worked to get to where he needed to get in this country."

His father was committed to helping his fellow Sikhs fulfill their dream of having a safe place to observe their faith in their community.

Now serving as a trustee at the same gurdwara, the son has picked up his father's mantle and works to make his city better.

Sikhism preaches and practices forgiveness.

For Sikhs, the act of forgiveness is considered a divine gift; because people cannot take personal credit for the ability to forgive, they have no standing to be prideful.

"We all play a role in eliminating hate," Pardeep said, noting that hatred seems to be growing worse in America.

"We as a society have become too comfortably complacent, and what I mean by that is that people are getting stuck in a routine," he said. "As long as nothing interrupts that routine, we think that the world around us and the community around us is doing fine.

"Hatred is sneaky in that way. It will take comfortable complacency and use it and consume it and create more and more hate. I see the biggest vehicle for creating hate is social media," he added.

Healing that hatred is going to take more than just removing a flag, he said, referring to the current raging Confederate flag issue.

"We generally want to say oh, OK, there's just one thing that is wrong with this and if we eliminate that, then somehow, some way, we can come to a solution," he said.

"We can think about it as a kind of wound, and the deeper the cut, the longer it's gonna take to heal."


[Courtesy: CNN. Glen Dacy contributed to this report from Wisconsin; Sara Sidner wrote from Los Angeles, where Alberto Moya and Michael Martinez also contributed. Edited for sikhchic.com]

June 26, 2015

 

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