kayray

The Queen, Kayray

in celebration of milk and honey’s first birthday i give you bottles of love. when i wondered how to celebrate this moment i thought why not give something which embodies the qualities of ‘milk and honey’. i wanted to create something physical which captured the attributes i visualized when i first imagined ‘milk and honey’ to represent my written work. certified natural and poured into old-fashioned milk bottles. this honey is made on chemical-free land with hives free from antibiotic residue by the wonderful women at Queen Farina . order yours at www.queenfarina.com.

Today while I was on public transit, the usual happened- every seat on the train was taken and the seat beside me was the only one that was free, but no one chose to sit there, and instead everyone stood. Nothing out of the ordinary for a turbaned and bearded guy in North America.

However, one woman put the icing on the cake. She was having difficulty standing on the moving train, so I offered the seat beside me. She looked at me, shook her head, then looked the other way. Her friend also asked her to sit down, but she refused again. As they were leaving, he asked her why she wouldn’t sit down. Her answer: “I don’t feel safe sitting next to someone that looks like that.”

As the door closed behind them, I looked on- shocked at what I just heard. Other people had clearly heard what she said, but didn’t really react or say anything. I decided to get up and stand as I didn’t want to face the same BS again.

A Punjabi Uncle Ji had seen what had happened and he came over to talk to me. I thought he would say words of encouragement, but instead he told me that I should “change my look,” tie up my beard to make it look smaller, wear a shorter gatra so my kirpan isn’t seen, and tie a more “appropriate” turban (aka the patiala shahi, not my dumalla).

Angered, I left the car at the next station and boarded the next one. The Paris attacks may be over, but the attacks on brown bodies have just begun. In the UK, someone tried to push a hijabi woman onto the tracks of an incoming train. In Ontario, a woman was attacked in public, and a Hindu mandir was vandalized.

I am tired of microaggressions. I am tired of racism. I am tired of the fact that we try to hide the fact that racism is a HUGE issue in Canada. I am tired of people in our community that cannot stand for their own people. I am tired of respectability politics.

I refuse to watch brown people continue to be demeaned, harmed, hurt, and insulted in such a manner. I refuse to tolerate this BS where something like this happens and onlookers do nothing. I refuse to change who I am, leaving behind the practices and traditions of my people to make myself more palatable for racist and xenophobic bigots.

A Toronto couple put a sign on their lawn asking if the Muslim community is “sorry” about the Paris attacks

A Sikh Canadian is getting death threats and is afraid to leave his house after someone photoshopped a picture of him look as if he was wearing a bomb vest, then was posted all over the internet by European media outlets

Vandals smash windows at Ram Dham Hindu temple in Kitchener

Arson at Masjid Al-Salaam mosque in Peterborough officially designated a hate crime

A Muslim woman in Toronto is attacked while picking her kids up from school - also officially designated a hate crime

Udaan - full series on www.baljitksingh.com