The Entire Barrel is Rotten

America has become an increasingly hateful place

I’ve experienced my share of racist “incidents” over the past 21 years of living in California, . They’ve popped  up every 6 months or so. There were a spate of incidents after 9/11. Then a few more during the tech bust of 2003.  I have had “B!#ch go home” and “You’re taking our jobs” shouted at me. Subtler aggressions have happened too. Like being asked, “Why do you Indians smell of curry,” or, “Have you thought of getting a western name?”

I dismissed the aggressors as bad apples. As ignorant people who didn’t know better. But over the last five years the frequency of racist experiences have grown for me and my family. Still, most of the incidents seemed to happen when we travelled outside of our county or our state. We felt safe in our bubble - at work, at school, in our neighborhood, and with our friends.

I remember the day all that changed. 

My son and I were in the checkout line at Gus’s Community Market in the Mission district in San Francisco.  The person standing right behind us struck up a conversation with my then very chatty 7 year old. It started innocently with a, “Where are you from?” question. My son said, “I live here. But I was born in Mountain View.” From there it seemed to escalate quickly as the man got belligerent. “You’re not from here,” he said. “You foreigners leave us alone. Go back to where you came from.” 

Maybe it was something about how ordinary and “like us” that man looked. Or that he could be so mean to a child. But that was the moment the bubble I had enclosed myself in burst. And with that brought a sudden and clear realization that something was very wrong. 

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.

Elvis Presley

In fact, things had been wrong for a long time now. They have been wrong for a large section of the population in America. My selfishness, self preservation instincts, and social selectiveness had blinded me. 

Disaster brings out the worst in America

While there has always been an undercurrent of racism in this country, observe how it has spiked the last few years. The political climate in the past five years has emboldened closet racists to come out in droves. In the midst of a terrible pandemic, America has dealt with an increase in atrocities against Black lives. The pandemic has given rise to vicious violence and hate against Asian Americans. We did the unthinkable by separating children from their undocumented immigrant parents! Our ugliness spews out as shootings, bad policy, on social media, and television channels. Like pus filled pimples of hatred all over the face of the country.

What is the key to get us to a better place? I’m very far from finding any solutions. But this quote from Gandhiji comes to mind.

All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.

Mahatma Gandhi

All of humanity is my family. Not doing anything is a selfish choice. The perpetrators of this hate are living amongst us. It was never as simple as separating and throwing out the rotten apples. So, what are we missing as a society?

The closest comparison to society is a large family. But I find that families come closer when faced with adversity. Even the most dysfunctional families have strong rooted bonds and a shared vest in each others’ well being. 

Anthropologists have observed that a common thread between close knit families and close knit societies is shared traditions. When I looked around for communities that are always kind to each other in bad times and good, two examples stood out: the Sikhs and the Albanians.

The Sikh community all over the world is known for its communal meals, called Langar and selfless service to humanity, called Seva . Both these ideas are core to the philosophy of Sikhism. From a very young age, the community imbibes these principles strongly in their children. Not surprisingly, the Sikh community is well known for mobilizing and helping society in the face of disasters like no other. Whether it was the wildfires in California or the current COVID-19 pandemic, the community Gurudwaras selflessly and without fail have come to the aid of the neighborhood that they are in. Thus, across generations and across borders, the Sikhs are by far the most resilient and the most selfless people.

Albania is often cited as a shining example of peaceful co-existence and religious tolerance of its people. But it goes beyond just tolerance, people in Albania take joy in each other's traditions. For instance the yearly “Day of the Blessed Water” event, which from the outside seems like a purely Christian event, is in fact a community event where people of all religious beliefs participate.  

Not bad apples anymore. The entire barrel is rotten.

I worry about our children growing up in this world that’s being overtaken by the bad apples. It is imperative to equip them to deal and fight against the current status quo. So, where do we start? Over the last few months I’ve come together with neighbors, teachers and co-workers to discuss this question. We’re far from any solutions, but the dialog and awareness is a good first step.

Recently at one of these discussions, my son said, “We can maybe start with removing  ‘-American’ suffix from names of ethnicities. No more ‘Indian-American’ or ‘African-American’, because it seems like we fall short of being ‘Real-American’.”