Desi Talk - page 8

– that’s all you need to know
Georgianna Dolan-Reilly, LMSW
ell us a bit more about yourself,
your work, and your alter ego.
The primary labels I put upon my-
self are of cartoonist, writer and
performance artist. More specifi-
cally I am an accidental cartoonist and an
accidental performance artist. The tragedy
of 9/11 and its aftermath of hate crimes
and incidents against innocent Americans
who fit a new stereotypical vision of the
‘Other’ caught me in its cross winds. As a
person of Sikh faith sporting a turban and
beard I became target of fear, insecurity
and ignorance for many fellow Americans.
An editorial cartoon created a few weeks
after the tragedy depicting the irony and
contradiction of this hateful response cap-
tured my attention. It featured a Sikh char-
acter. That illustration was enough to plant
a seed for an idea in my brain. Months later
in 2002 I started creating cartoons full of
turbans and beards to vent my frustration
and at times also my exultation.
How have perceptions of race influ-
enced you as an individual? As an artist?
Race is a strange presence in our lives.
Personally I never thought much about it.
But I have lived in societies that are struc-
tured immensely by the long human con-
structed narratives of race, ethnic labels. So
here is my race narrative. My birth certifi-
cate states my race is ‘White’. That is be-
cause all South Asians are considered part
of the so called ‘Caucasian’ race.We Ameri-
cans for the most part confuse Caucasian
withWhite which is technically not always
true. I also grew up as a Sikh which many in
the west do not know anything about. So in
their eyes I was an Arab.
In India where I spent part of my child-
hood, I was part of one of the smallest and
most recognizable ethnic minorities. At
about 2% of India’s population Sikhs are
known and recognized easily by most of its
billion inhabitants. Being part of this group
would almost get me killed in the after-
math of the assassination of the Indian
Prime Minister on October 31st, 1984. The
Indian leader was killed by her two Sikh
bodyguards in reaction to a long simmer-
ing political confrontation between the
Sikhs and Indian state over a myriad of is-
sues. The response of the state was tyranny.
Thousands of Sikh men identified by their
turbans and beards were burnt alive.
Coming back to the land of my birth in
Los Angeles I was greeted by many
strangers with calls of ‘genie’, ‘raghead’,
‘clown’, and at times outright laughter. In
college I wanted to become invisible; To
transcend my identity. The only way I
thought I could do this was to take off my
turban and cut my long unshorn hair for
the first time in my life. For many years to
come I was confused by some to be His-
panic.
Eventually I embraced the faith I was
born into almost 10 years later. In August
2001 I donned the turban after having
moved to the east coast working just north
of NewYork City. A month later the attacks
of 9/11 happened. I was once again part of
the so called ‘Other’. Since that fateful
tragedy I have called all kind of names and
told to ‘Go Back Home’ many times.
This race and ethnic narrative fuels my
work as an artist. I use my art to target our
contradictions with a dash of humor. I like
to see my work as rewiring some of our
brain circuitry with new connections creat-
ing the potential for new chapters in the
American saga.
You’ve been dressing as Sikh Captain
America since 2012 or 2013, what messages
have you and do you hope to share with
this?
Donning the uniform of Captain Amer-
ica was another accident that has changed
my life. I first created an illustration of Cap-
tain America with a turban and beard as a
marketing piece I had created for my first
visit to the NYC Comic Con in 2011. This il-
lustration planted the seeds into a photog-
rapher’s vision to capture me as part of her
photo-essay project on Sikhs in America.
She requested me to dress up as the char-
acter I had sketched. I said no. I have had
body image issues all my life for being
skinny. Loved ones made me acutely aware
of this being a problem. Eventually it be-
came a problem I owned up myself.
A tragedy almost a year later at a Sikh
Gurudwara (house of worship) inMilwau-
kee prompted me to pen an op-ed piece
about America needing a new comic super-
hero fighting hate crimes. The photogra-
pher, Fiona Aboud, made another request
for me to don the uniform of Captain
America for the photoshoot. The killing of
Sikh worshippers by a white supremacist
changed the narrative which allowed me to
get out of my own way. I agreed to don the
uniform to push the perceptions of fellow
Americans, with the hope of broadening
their horizons.
In 2013 I stepped out on a warm June
day dressed up as Captain America. My life
has not been the same since. The uniform
of a fictional character and its made up
story has real life consequences.We Ameri-
cans treat the story of superheroes at times
as part of our mythology as if it did happen
in real life. I have been able to enter this
mythological space to create the potential
for new story lines in our national con-
sciousness.
What has been Sikh Captain America’s
best experience or conversation?What had
been the worst?
The best experience was my chance en-
counter, actually two to be precise with a
police officer from Arizona who was visit-
ing NewYork City in 2014. He sawme twice
on the subway the same day dressed up as
Captain America. I was shooting Red,
White & Beard, a short documentary film.
His wife nudged him to ask me what I was
doing.We only has a couple of minutes
since I had to get off the next stop. I got a
letter about a day later from the police offi-
cer introducing himself in detail. He was
one of the responders after 9/11 attacks
helping some of the first responders cope
with mental health challenges. He was vis-
iting ground zero for the first time since the
tragedy.
For himmy vision of Captain America
epitomized completely the purpose of this
superhero. He planned to use my Captain
America alter-ego in his training of young
rookie cops.
Overwhelmingly my experiences are
positive when I am in uniform. Most of the
negative responses come from online trolls.
What social justice issues would your Cap-
tain America address today?Why?
The challenge of our times is hate, the
epidemic of stereotypes and bias most im-
portantly implicit bias. Those are the issues
Captain America has to address. More than
any singular villain, a foreign entity or an
enemy nation our own vulnerabilities and
insecurities are the biggest challenges con-
fronting us. They are a clear and present
danger that is preventing us from coordi-
nating the most effective response to secu-
rity threats facing us all.
I will quote Abraham Lincoln to empha-
size this. “America will never be destroyed
from the outside. If we falter and lose our
freedoms, it will be because we destroyed
ourselves.”
How do you believe artists can help in-
fluence policy change and politics?
Artists are always engaging in reformu-
lating, reinterpreting our story lines. Many
are engaged in messing with what we call
reality. Is it something that exists out there,
is it all in our heads, or is it all a big wiry
mess with connections into all kinds of di-
mensions? Artists sometimes succeed in
creating confusion, provoking questions,
invoking strong visceral reactions. Artists
are always trying to throw fire into our
imaginations to precipitate storms of
change.
Our mediums might be different but this
is our purpose which makes us agents of
change often overtly masked as agents of
entertainment.
Given today’s political climate regarding
immigrant communities what particular
approaches can artists and social workers
take to help those communities?
One of the most poignant actions we
can enable when it comes to immigrant
communities is story telling. The stories of
new immigrants are very similar to many
immigrants who came to our shores from
Europe. These stories have to be told,
printed, screamed out loud from rooftops,
broadcast to our smartphones using any
and every medium at our disposal. Our
own not so distant past is the best balm to
what ails us today.
Along the same line, what is your opin-
ion about the rise in negative perceptions
of, and increase in general attacks on,
members of the South Asian and Middle
Eastern community? How do you feel your
work and similar work can help counter
that?
Humans around the globe suffer from
the continual affliction throughout history
where anytime vulnerabilities surface in
our wellbeing we project the source as
being outside our own selves. Of course
problems can arise from the outside but
how we approach the root cause can get in-
tertwined with our lack of self-introspec-
tion.
What Muslims and South Asians are
going through today is not new.We have
been here before with other communities
being targeted in times of distress; be it
war, financial collapse or other societal
challenges. I am hammering away at some
of these perceptual pitfalls and many other
artists are doing the same.We need to con-
nect with our history, our ancestors, our
vulnerabilities. That has to be our medita-
tion. Unfortunately we have to keep re-
learning some of the lessons from our past.
I don’t see that changing. So all artists have
to keep finding ways to tell our stories in
old and news ways.
What do you think social workers can
take away from your experiences?
Social workers given the nature of their
profession and practice get to peek deeper
than most professions into the trials and
tribulations of many Americans. Social
workers get to interface with the vulnera-
bilities of many who are struggling to make
ends meet. Vulnerabilities can be painful
but they are not entirely negative. Vulnera-
bilities can also be powerful change agents.
How we recognize, frame and tackle these
vulnerabilities can lead to new forks in the
journey of our lives. Some of the most po-
tent moments in our lives past, present,
real or fiction are derived from the well of
vulnerabilities. Social workers get to work
in this potent space. You have more oppor-
tunities to change lives than many of us.
Vishavjit Singh is a NYC based illustrator,
writer, performance artist and creator of
Sikhtoons.com. He is also a Media Fellow at
the Sikh American Legal Defense and Edu-
cation Fund (SALDEF) based inWashing-
ton DC.
– Social Justice Solutions
An InterviewWith Sikh Captain America On Race, Social Justice
T
8
April 21, 2017
COVER STORY
Making Turbans Passé
Photographer Fiona Aboud,with permission from Social Justice Solutions
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