On the morning of February 24, 2017, authorities in the state of Kansas placed murder charges against a 51-year-old white male accused of opening fire on a restaurant and bar in Kansas City -- killing one Indian man, critically injuring two people, and triggering a cascade of concerns from the Indian communities across the world regarding a recent surge of hate crimes in the United States.
Adam Purinton, a former Navy veteran, opened fire after he reportedly told two of the men shot, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, to “get out of my country,” while also using a slew of racial slurs during the shooting itself. According to the Kansas City Star, after the shooting, Purinton was seen ordering another drink to unwind and telling the bartender that he just killed two Middle Eastern men. Kuchibhotla and Madasani, both of Indian descent, worked at the technology firm Garmin. While Madasani was critically injured and survived his wounds, his colleague Kuchibhotla died at the scene. Ian Grillot, a white American man, was injured trying to protect the two Indian men and has now been hailed by the media as a hero.
In the aftermath of the tragic shooting, many Indians living in the United States and abroad have quickly pointed fingers to the conspicuous rise of hate crimes incited by the recent election of President Donald Trump into office. Madasani’s father pleaded parents in India to “not send their children to the United States in the present circumstances.” Venu Madhav, one of Kuchibhotla’s relatives, said that “there is a kind of hysteria spreading that is not good because so many of our beloved children live there.”
No matter what Sean Spicer or the White House may say, this incident is rooted in the bigotry and xenophobia that have festered even further after Donald Trump’s election and inauguration. But, we cannot point a finger at Donald Trump without looking at ourselves in the mirror. While the Indian-American community is not directly responsible for any of the hate crimes that have sprung up before and after November 2016, we have, in some instances, chosen the side of our oppressor by remaining silent and complacent to the injustice around us.
Reports show that Purinton gunned down the two Indian men because he thought they were Middle Eastern, but Indians should not dismiss this shooting as a lone-wolf case of mistaken racial identity. Immediately after the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh gas station owner, was murdered because he was mistaken as an Arab due to his beard and turban. In 2012, Wade Michael Page, an active member of a white supremacist group called the Northern Hammerskins, attacked a peaceful gurdwara in Wisconsin, killing 6 people.
In 2015, Sureshbhai Patel came from India to Alabama to visit his grandson. While Mr. Patel was taking a walk around the neighborhood, a white neighbor called 911 to report a suspicious “skinny black guy” on the street. The police arrived and began to brutally assault Mr. Patel, who spoke very little English. Mr. Patel spent months in the hospital, partially paralyzed. The police officers involved in the assault were not charged or convicted of any wrongdoing, though the entire incident was caught on film.
The stereotypes placed against other racial minorities affect us too. Our so-called “model minority” status just distances us from this harsh reality.
Yet, India’s fraught relationship with racism and colorism has permeated into Indian communities in America as “tradition,” spurning dark complexion and frantically plastering our faces with skin lightening creams. In fact, India’s aversion to dark skin has transgressed so far that the Hindi slur “kaali” has often found its way to the forefront of everyone’s tongues. Until the 1970s, Indian-Americans fought the United States government to be considered white in the federal census in an effort to escape the discrimination faced by other people of color. We knew what was going on. The government was (and is still) viciously undermining the rights of our African-American brethren through its voter suppression, segregated facilities, and more. But, we were selfish; we didn’t care. We turned away to save ourselves and earn better opportunities as part of the “model minority.”
Indian-Americans boast the highest median income among all racial demographic groups in the United States; many of us are members of the upper echelons of the middle class. This also comes with a level of socioeconomic privilege that we think would distance us from other people of color who aren’t as fortunate. But, it doesn’t. As Sandip Roy writes in The Huffington Post, “the hate graffiti on the wall does not check visa status.” We immigrants are all connected, no matter our skin color. In fact, had it not been for black activists during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s, we would not even be here today.
Up until the 1960s, racist laws in the United States only allowed up to 100 immigrants from countries like China and India to enter the country every year. Black activists during the Civil Rights Movement sought to remove quotas and laws like these through protest and civil disobedience, in an effort to end racism not only for black citizens but for all people of color like us. Thanks to the Civil Rights Movement, Congress passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, both of which would eliminate any form of racial discrimination from American policy. The Immigration Act of 1965 removed all racist immigration quotas so that we could live the American Dream.
And, what did we do when white supremacist Dylann Roof opened fire on a historically black church in Charleston, killing six people in cold blood? We just watched.
The Indian-American community does not live in a vacuum. In fact, Donald Trump’s immigration policies will also single out South Asian Americans. Due to visa overstays, South Asian Americans have become one of the fastest-growing groups entering the United States illegally. A report from The Pew Center states that there were nearly “half a million unauthorized Indian immigrants in the United States in 2014, a 43% spike since 2009.” The Times of India also reports that close to 300,000 Indians could be affected by the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions.
During his election campaign, Donald Trump tried to pander towards the Indian-American community, releasing ads that said “ab ki baar, Trump sarkaar” -- and some of us fell for it. Hard. While 70% of Indian-Americans planned to vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election, some Indian-American Hindus saw this as a chance to undermine the freedoms of Muslims in the United States, embittered by the constant power struggles between Hindus and Muslims in India throughout history. But, intentional complacency to racism that “doesn’t affect us” has never and will never work. Every immigrant, whether Indian or Mexican or Syrian, is connected; our stories are intertwined. We must stand in solidarity with one another. Don’t let our high median income fool you -- silence kills. We occupy no special place in the heart of white America. Srinivas Kuchibhotla knew that better than any of us.
