{"id":41715,"date":"2018-09-12T16:43:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T23:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/?p=41715"},"modified":"2018-09-12T16:43:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T23:43:52","slug":"a-shield-as-a-weapon-against-intolerance-sikh-captain-america-takes-to-the-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/a-shield-as-a-weapon-against-intolerance-sikh-captain-america-takes-to-the-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"A Shield as a Weapon Against Intolerance"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a funny thing\u2014the skinny guy with the turban, glasses, and big beard wandering around New York City dressed up like Captain America.<\/strong> People are smiling. People are laughing. People are joyously putting their arms around him to get a selfie. Sikh Captain America is a popular guy in the streets with that charming outfit, that disarming smile, that shield. Hashtag superhero. Tweet. Retweet. Instagram heart. Facebook post. Heart emoji. Hashtag America.<\/p>\n

Sikh Captain America\u2019s name is Vishavjit Singh and he\u2019s had a mob come to his house to murder his family. He\u2019s been called names: \u201cclown,\u201d \u201cgenie,\u201d \u201craghead.\u201d Singh wears a turban. He has a beard. He has brown skin. After 9\/11 he didn\u2019t leave his house for two weeks, afraid to. Once he did he was eyed, ridiculed, made fun of, yelled at, derided. Once, not five minutes after taking off his Captain America outfit and getting back into his street clothes, someone yelled at him across the street, \u201cOsama bin Laden!\u201d<\/p>\n

Singh started writing cartoons of Sikh characters soon after 9\/11.<\/strong> He himself grew up in the Sikh faith (the 5th<\/sup> largest religion in the world) and wanted to start making Sikh characters known. One day he drew a Sikh Captain America. Drawing the Sikh superhero he thought we should relish our diversity and understand our commonalities. Then, in 2012, a mass shooting took place at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. A white supremacist opened fire, fatally shooting six people and wounding four more.<\/p>\n

The shooting affected him. Perhaps, he thought with much cajoling from friends and associates, he should don the Captain America costume and step out into the streets. Those horrible tragedies led him to this\u2014the smiling people, the laughing people, the people eager to take their photo with him. \u201cMy palms were sweating,\u201d he says on that first foray into New York\u2019s streets. \u201cI was scared out of my mind.\u201d He got hugs. Cops came up to take pictures of him. A fire station invited him in. He was pulled into a wedding. \u201cI quickly realized I was onto something good.\u201d Ever since, he\u2019s traveled throughout the country, and beyond, to fight intolerance. \u201cWe all have stories to tell,\u201d he says. \u201cWe just have to reach out to people and ask what theirs is.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Singh for his story.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He was born in Washington, DC but moved to India as a young child. He left India and came back to the states soon after Indira Gandhi\u2019s assassination in 1984. The news spread fast the day of Gandhi\u2019s death; the assassins were her own bodyguards and those bodyguards were Sikh. Mobs, eager for revenge, roared into the streets looking for Sikhs.\u00a0 The Singh family was terrified. They survived, with the help of their neighbors, but thousands were not so lucky. Sikh men and boys were burned alive. Sikh women were victims of sexual violence. Sikh businesses, homes, and houses of worship were gutted. He\u2019s drawn these experiences into his cartoons. \u201cWe need to read our history, tell our stories, and make more connecting points.\u201d<\/p>\n

He returned to America and attended college, turbaned and bearded. People laughed at him, and told him to go back to where he came from. He\u2019s an American citizen. \u201cI began questioning why I needed to stand out. People look at me wherever I go.\u201d He took off his turban, got a haircut, and shaved his beard. After he did it, \u201cNo one was looking at me! People thought I was Hispanic and started speaking to me in Spanish. I told them I didn\u2019t speak Spanish. They asked, \u2018Then what are you?\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singh\u2019s return to his Sikh roots took years. He\u2019s grown his hair long again. He\u2019s grown his beard back. He wears a turban. Also? He wears a superhero costume.<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019m trying to confuse peoples\u2019 initial perceptions. Confusion leads to exploration, exploration to learning, and learning to understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy can\u2019t we all be Captain America?\u201d Singh asks. \u201cWe all can<\/em> be Captain America. Why can\u2019t a girl be Captain America? A black person?\u00a0 A woman? An old man? A child? We\u2019re all Americans. We should not be defined by labels\u2026I am more,\u201d Singh says, \u201cthan what you see.\u201d<\/p>\n

An introvert by nature, Singh has certainly stepped out of his comfort zone and he suggests that we all take a few steps outside of our own comfort:\u00a0 \u201cWe need to create a safe space for each other. We can learn so much from each other.\u201d As Captain America he goes to comic book conventions, camps, retreats. He lectures to children and adults, and he exhibits at museums\u00a0 (including WHAM! BAM! POW! Cartoons, Turbans & Confronting Hate<\/em><\/a>, now showing at the Wing Luke Museum).<\/p>\n

Why? He doesn\u2019t want anyone to feel like he\u2019s felt his whole life: like \u2018an other.\u2019<\/strong> \u201cWe write our story every day. Find a way to tell it,\u201d he implores us. \u201cFind your voice. We all have a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who is Vishavjit Singh? A Sikh, an American, a cartoonist, a husband, a son, a brother, a writer\u2014more than all that. He teaches us that we\u2019re more than a label, more than the sum of our parts. He\u2019s Captain America, and he\u2019s here to tell us: so are we all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Don’t miss Singh’s event at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center on October 1st and 7:30PM. Reserve your tickets here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a funny thing\u2014the skinny guy with the turban, glasses, and big beard wandering around New York City dressed up like Captain America. People are smiling. People are laughing. People are joyously putting their arms around him to get a selfie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,17,6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-stage","category-editorial","category-interview-conversation","category-town-crier","category-town-hall-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townhallseattle.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}