Geoffrey Garin to lead study on community.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: The National Sikh Campaign (NSC) has hired a former political strategist of Hillary Clinton’s to help lead an effort to re-shape the public image and perception of Sikhs in the US.
NSC has hired Geoffrey Garin in a move to combat misconceptions about the Sikh religion and community that pervade America. Garin previously directed strategy for Clinton’s failed 2008 bid for the White House, and has also served as a pollster and strategic advisor for Priorities USA, a super-Political Action Committee that played an active role in President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.
NSC executive director Gurwin Singh Ahuja told PTI that Garin’s exceptional record as a pollster and policy researcher are ultimately what made him so attractive to the Sikh organization. Garin will lead a study on Sikhs and Sikhism in America in order to contextualize the religion in the minds of US citizens today. The NSC hopes that this will help them further focus their goals and outreach.
“The Sikh community needs to define who we are because we know: Sikh values are American values,” the NSC says on its website.
The NSC is an organization that exists for the sole purpose of combatting stereotypes and misunderstandings regarding Sikh Americans, defining its goals as highlighting Sikh contributions to the US, creating an environment in which Sikhs don’t have to hide their articles of faith, and help establish a better environment for Sikhs to become leaders in the US.
The Sikh community has seen crimes against them increase in recent years, after a spate that plagued followers of the faith immediately after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Sikhs often get misidentified as Muslims, and are typically targets for bullies and other racists attacks because of their beards and turbans.
Recent studies have shown that Sikh children in the US are frequently targets of name-calling and other forms of bullying. According to the NSC, “a majority of Americans cannot even accurately identify a Sikh.” And, of course, no one can forget the tragic 2012 gurudwara shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, perpetrated by a white supremacist who ultimately claimed six innocent lives.
But steps are being taken to help protect Sikh Americans. Last year, the US government formally launched a nation-wide database that tracks hate crimes against Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus in the US.