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a Sikh professor in New York City has been mistaken for a muslim man attacked
by a group of teens raw story is reporting this
this is per shot saying an assistant professor I've International and public
affairs at columbia
who recently wrote a New York Times op-ed
about hate crimes he was attacked by a group of teens who were of course
shouting anti-muslim sentiments over the weekend
saying who as i mentioned is a Sikh and not
Muslim told nbc4 that I heard ghetto sama
and then terrorists and the next thing I felt
with someone moving past me ripping at my beard
and hitting me in the chin it tried to escape his attackers they were able to
surround him
and a forced into the ground they were kicking him they were punching him
he was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he had surgery
on his fractured job I think that we've talked before Lewis
about how seeks have suffered significant discrimination in the US
being mistaken for moslems this is not the first time that's happened
it probably will not be the last sadly but i wanna reach you an interesting
comment from armor Deep Singh
no relation a2 the the victim of the beating here
who is a professor a professor English at Lehigh University
and he said that the problem with most reporting
on the stories have seeks being being up because they were mistaken for Muslims
is that they often implicitly take the position
that the attack would have been justified had the guy
actually been a Muslim any says as always with incidents have must Muslim
bashing and seek bashing
it seems important not to dwell on the fact that seeks are not Muslims for one
thing the attackers may not care that much one way or another
but more importantly one doesn't wanna sanction hateful speech or violence
against any vulnerable group based on correct identification
remember colin powell at the time
when colin powell first started to be more of a vocal supporter
of President Obama's which coincided with I guess we could call it the height
of the birther movement
colin powell said putting aside
whether anyone thinks President Obama is a Muslim or whether he is or isn't
because he clearly is not
why would it matter why would it matter and colin powell did a great job of
bringing that point of view kinda into the mainstream
this is true these individuals are
as a factual matter these these teens and others who who beat up seeks
they're not even informed about who they hate right they they barely know
anything about the group that they hate
but we can't forget that it would be unacceptable either way
yeah that's right I mean this is
part of the reason why education is one of the most important things in the
world I mean yeah
I you know what it's not say that they wouldn't die
is still go beat up a Muslim if they knew for certain that it was a Muslim
but at least being aware of the world that you live in
could help to alleviate some tension