Ravi Bhalla, the first Sikh man to become a mayor in New Jersey, was sworn into his new position as mayor of Hoboken on New Year’s Day. His first action as mayor was to declare Hoboken a “fair and welcoming city” by executive order. While the declaration shies away from the word “sanctuary,” perhaps in … Read More
The Problem with Apu, a documentary by comedian Hari Kondabolu premiered on November 19th, is perhaps more a mockumentary. In it, Kondabolu takes on the Simpsons, one of the longest running televisions shows still on air, to expose what he finds to be the overtly racist and minstrel character that is Apu The problem with … Read More
Since bigotry and fearmongering continue to be a winning political strategy in US elections, it’s not a surprise that many candidates during this off-year cycle have cashed in on anti-immigrant, racist rhetoric and campaign imagery. It is worth noting, though, as the 2017 elections wrap up, how blatantly obvious and revolting this messaging was in … Read More
Local elections can get ugly, but Edison, New Jersey’s school board elections just took it to the next level. This week, an anonymous campaign mailer appeared in residents’ mailboxes proclaiming, “Make Edison Great Again.” What is keeping Edison from being great already? All the Asians, apparently. Some mysterious concerned citizens of Edison took it upon … Read More
Today in white fragility: 12-year old winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Ananya Vinay, proves her intellectual prowess and a grown, white woman can’t let her have her god damned moment. 12-year-old Ananya Vinay won the National Spelling Bee so naturally CNN had her on to spell “covfefe” and say some racist stuff to … Read More
This piece was originally posted on Homegrown. In February of 2016, a Tanzanian student in Bangalore was pulled out of her car, assaulted and stripped by an angry mob after a 35-year-old pedestrian was knocked down by a Sudanese student in another car. This horrific incident added fuel to the “India is racist” debate, with … Read More
This morning, Sikh actor-cum-designer Waris Ahluwalia was denied the right to board an AeroMexico flight heading for New York. Airline personnel detained him prior to boarding his flight from Mexico City because he refused to remove his turban (what Sikhs call a dastar) for a security check. Ahluwalia explained to New York Daily News that he would … Read More
