On National Tragedy And Personal Identity: Reflections On The Shootings In Wisconsin

Well, that’s my dad you’re ostracizing. That’s my dad you’re humiliating. That’s my dad that you’re questioning. And I’m his son. So what does that make me? When I walk down the street, perceived only vaguely as South Asian, few assume I’m going to blow them up into pieces, so why should anyone assume the same about my father, my uncles, my cousins, or any member of that community–my community?

It’s been an iterative and evolutionary process. Through my admittedly elitist, though rather cherished, liberal arts education, I began to find a framework within which to fit, analyze, and conclude Stuff about My Life and The World. This, I believe, is the same framework that has enabled our friend Harsha to posit that “[the] suggestion that the killings were senseless attempts to construct the shooting as random and without logic” is in fact baseless, “when in fact racist hate crimes operate through the very deliberate and precise logic of white supremacy.”

This “othering”–through the lenses of racial supremacy doctrines, Islamaphobia, and, of course, fear of being “taken over”–is not something to which I am a casual party. It is an inherent influence on identity–one that cannot be divorced from experience, pain, and dare I say it–pride.

Since Sunday, while walking around the various enclaves of “progressive” Washington, D.C. where I live and work, I cannot help but just feel angry. My savvy sartorial choices that I know build my cachet around this town when I am observed (the “gaze of privilege”) stand in stark contrast to what I now feel is a gaping hole atop my head.

From the office to coffee to lunch to the pharmacy to the bank, and back–the mundane journey of an employed, educated young professional–I couldn’t help but feel naked and fitful under the weight of a turban that doesn’t exist and a beard whose only trace is my day-old stubble.

I am not a religious person. I have spent a long enough period of my life studying religion and I understand, appreciate, laud, and deride the various roles it has and continues to play in both bridging and dividing not just people, but also places and thought.

And yet today, of all days, I am a Sikh. I want nothing more than to wear a turban and grow a beard and walk down the streets of DC–certainly no Oak Creek–but my no means any less uncomfortable with bearded, turbaned men, and declare to the barista and to the clerk that yes, I am the Other and no, I will not be afraid.

Amit S. Bagga is the Manager of Business Operations for the No Kid Hungry Campaign at Share our Strength, a Washington, D.C.-based national non-profit organization that works with state and local governments, private industry, and other non-profit groups to end childhood hunger in the United States. Formerly, Bagga served on the staff of former US Representative Anthony Weiner in both New York and Washington for several years, primarily managing immigration, LGBTQ, and South Asian affairs policy issues. He is a native New Yorker and has been active in advocacy and organizing on behalf of gay South Asian communities in both New York and Washington, D.C.

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