Sikh add to woo Americans |
Theirs is a typical family of four, living normal lives, dining, playing, spending time together. That they follow the world`s fifth largest religion — Sikhism, which originated in India — doesn`t make them different, they say, for they are proud Americans, sharing the same American values as others. This is the message delivered in a 30-second ad, which tries to clear the air over their identities, as they have been mistaken for people from other ethnicity — but especially as terrorists, because of their beards and turbans. Simply called “Proud”, the ad is among two that began airing in April, at the end of a long drawn-out process that started at President Barack Obama`s second inaugural ball in 2013, just a few months after the massacre of six Sikh men and women at a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The ad airs a final time now. The tragedy was a turning point for the community of 500,000 that has battled ignorance and apathy about their religion and paid for it with their blood — they were the victims of the backlash over the September 11, 2001 World Trade Centre attacks, mistaken for a west-Asian.
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