Source: CNN
By Winty Singh
(CNN)Two decades ago, when I was in the second grade, a substitute teacher asked me to stand up in front of my class and talk about my religion: Sikhism. At 7 years old, I tried to explain it as best I could and avoid being ridiculed. I remember feeling totally unprepared and struggling afterward with the fear of being exposed like that again. At 7, I was already afraid of public speaking.
Winty Singh
Later that year, we were returning from recess when a classmate pinned me down and intentionally blew his nose on my turban. He was lightly admonished for his actions, but what I remember most was that nobody, including my teacher, understood how devastating it was to have my turban — a sacred religious article of faith in Sikhism — desecrated by a bully.
In sixth grade, on my first day of school, a teacher asked me to remove my “beanie.” After a chorus of laughter from my classmates, I stumbled to explain that it wasn’t a beanie, and that I would not take it off. She relented without apology, but my classmates didn’t, and “beanie” became the common word for my turban for the rest of school year.
Categories: America, Racism, Sikhism, The Muslim Times, USA