Northern California; the Sikh Community under attack

[Rusty Shackleford]

two elderly Sikh men were shot, one killed, the other in critical condition, in the Sacramento Area over the weekend. This comes months after the attack on a Sikh cab driver. Northern California boasts probably the largest proportional indian/hindi/sikh community. Yuba City being known as "little india" or "New New Delhi"


Practicers of sikhism wear the traditional turban every day and this often leads to ignorant people believing they are Muslim. "Towel Head" is often a term used to attack these people.

CAIR (Center for American-Islamic Relations) has issued a statement of support for the Sikh Community in the Sacramento area following the attack. Immigrants from India are a very oppressed community even if many of their families own businesses. To boot, i feel the indian immigrant community is often forgotten in the struggle against racism.

$5,000 Reward Offered In Elk Grove Shooting (http://www.kcra.com/news/27100071/detail.html)


ELK GROVE, Calif. -- Elk Grove police have asked the community to help them locate a possible suspect vehicle in the shooting of two men from the Sikh community Friday afternoon.A spokesperson for the police department said detectives are looking for a 1999-2003 Ford F150, tan or light brown in color.The spokesperson said the vehicle was seen in the area just after the shooting.The Council on American Islamic Relations has also offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible.Friday, two elderly members of the Sikh community were shot while walking.Gurmej Atwal, 78, is in the hospital recovering, after undergoing surgery for his gun shot wounds."He looks much better than yesterday," said Kamaljeet Kaur Atwal, Gurmej Atwal's daughter-in-law. "He opened his eyes all the way but yesterday he opened only a little."Gurmej Atwal's son, Kamaljit Singh Atwal, said he will have to undergo one more surgery.Surinder Singh, 65, died at the scene.The victims' family said the two walked twice daily for several miles.Police have said they suspect the shooting was a hate crime.Kamaljit Singh Atwal said he does not want to jump to conclusions, but he said people need to be more understanding of each other's differences."Sikhs are also members of this community," He said. "We should not match apple to apple who is that who is this."A spokesperson for the Council on American Islamic Relations said Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims and attacked.They are offering the reward to show their support."It's saddens me," said Executive Director of CAIR Basim Elkarra. "This is a community where we are raising our children, and to see these types of attacks, every time I look at my baby daughter I think what kind of future is she going to have?"On Monday, the organization will hold an inter-faith gathering to stand against hate crimes.Police have not identified a suspect in the shooting.

[StalinFanboy]

This isn't surprising at all. Northern California has a pretty large population of neo-nazis and other racist/white supremacist types.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Tragic, violence against Sikhs is twice an act of bigotry, first for hating Muslims and second for thinking anyone who wears a turban must be one. I hope they catch the bastards, and I wish the US government would actually do something about anti-Indian discrimination, an issue which has been ignored.

In fact, it is ironic because Sikhs started wearing the Turban during a time of increased repression by the Islamic Mughal government.

This might be a controversial argument to make on a socialist forum, but is the American Rightwing getting more anti-Islamic since Bush left office? Despite his numerous flaws, he himself seemed far more comfortable with Islamic culture than his ideological allies on the right who are far more comfortable making explicitly anti-Muslim arguments. Advisers from his government have also been among the few Republicans who told the GOP that they were being bigoted polemicists over the ground zero mosque. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/19/AR2010081904427.html) I know its a tangent from the main argument, but it worries me because I feel we might see more bullshit like this from the American right wing, and an expansion of its worst and most racist elements into broader American society.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This isn't surprising at all. Northern California has a pretty large population of neo-nazis and other racist/white supremacist types.Tell me about it. I grew up in a nazi-area in Sac where there were two warring aryan gangs and you'd see people walking around without shits, with their swastika tattoos showing.

Some more "fun" facts about Sacramento's bigots:

Sacramento is where Limbaugh first gained popularity.

A few years ago there were a series of attacks in on LGBT people and a right-wing Slavic church in the area that was promoting anti-gay hate speech. In addition there was the morning zoo DJs who said that parents of trans kids should beat their kids or something to that effect.

Also when I was a kid there were Nazis who firebombed a jewish temple, the NAACP offices, a housing office, an asian council-member's house, and a few other places.

This year a guy was arrested after harassing his neighbor and flying a Nazi flag on his property.

On the lighter side, the top US neo-nazi was killed in Sacramento yesterday.

But on the seriously brighter side, there is much more of a youthful and and progressive population around there now compared to the bleak 1990s.

[Rusty Shackleford]

seriously, Sacramento is FUCKED UP. and the liberals here are weak as shit.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This might be a controversial argument to make on a socialist forum, but is the American Rightwing getting more anti-Islamic since Bush left office? Despite his numerous flaws, he himself seemed far more comfortable with Islamic culture than his ideological allies on the right who are far more comfortable making explicitly anti-Muslim arguments. Advisers from his government have also been among the few Republicans who told the GOP that they were being bigoted polemicists over the ground zero mosque. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/19/AR2010081904427.html) I know its a tangent from the main argument, but it worries me because I feel we might see more bullshit like this from the American right wing, and an expansion of its worst and most racist elements into broader American society.Yes, but not because Bush was more friendly to Islamic culture. Really anti-Islam is the only thing left for the US to get support for its wars in the Middle East. They can't claim WMDs, they can't claim they are anti-dictators after Egypt and they can't really claim that they need to stay to "ensure democracy" when people in North Africa seem more than capable:).

I think we will see increased and more mainstream anti-Islam and anti-Arab speech - also probably more of a conflation of Arabs and radicalism after the uprisings in North Africa. Glenn Beck has already done some of that work. War in capitalism needs to dehumanize and demonize the population being put under the heel of imperialism and the military on the one hand and crack down on dissent. Ruling class war on the population in times of economic crisis also needs scapegoats and increased repression... so yeah, it'll be a double-whammy of hate and scapegoatery.

On the positive side, i think there's a chance to build an anti-war movement with much more clear solidarity with the people of the middle east (the anti-war movement - the liberals anyway - were really hindered by an undercurrent of mistrust of arabs, but now there can be no excuse and I think even excited young liberals will be more willing to understand why self-determination is possible and necessary. Also I hope it will energize Arab-Americans to become more a part of the anti-war movement and more vocal in standing up to harassment and repression. We're already seeing some of that with the solidarity protests for Egypt and with more opposition to the the right-wing attacks and FBI spying and entrapment.

[Jimmie Higgins]

seriously, Sacramento is FUCKED UP. and the liberals here are weak as shit.Yeah, but then there's you and me and I know a few other scattered radicals up there. While at my high school there was a lot of racial tension, I also met my first radical in HS. A maoist from Columbia and another person I know went from being a dittohead in high school to a (Democratic) Socialist after 10 years of shit-jobs. Hmm, your boss aint so kind after all, eh. Not so simple as "voting with your feet" and finding a better job when you're living paycheck to paycheck, huh?

I love how conservatives always say: "In the real world... then you'll stop being a silly socialist." For people growing up now, I think it's the opposite... they grew up believing all the Clinton/Greenspan capitalist dreamland bullshit and now that they are seeing capitalism in it's more exposed form, they're becoming more socialist.:lol:

[StalinFanboy]

Tell me about it. I grew up in a nazi-area in Sac where there were two warring aryan gangs and you'd see people walking around without shits, with their swastika tattoos showing.

Some more "fun" facts about Sacramento's bigots:

Sacramento is where Limbaugh first gained popularity.

A few years ago there were a series of attacks in on LGBT people and a right-wing Slavic church in the area that was promoting anti-gay hate speech. In addition there was the morning zoo DJs who said that parents of trans kids should beat their kids or something to that effect.

Also when I was a kid there were Nazis who firebombed a jewish temple, the NAACP offices, a housing office, an asian council-member's house, and a few other places.

This year a guy was arrested after harassing his neighbor and flying a Nazi flag on his property.

On the lighter side, the top US neo-nazi was killed in Sacramento yesterday.

But on the seriously brighter side, there is much more of a youthful and and progressive population around there now compared to the bleak 1990s.
Yeah I come from a tiny town in the foothills, and I've been mugged twice by neo-nazis for being a known anti-fascist. shit blows

[Rusty Shackleford]

ive met 2 of your comrades in the area recently.

ive seen kids with anti-nazi patches looking punk as fuck.

shit, i met the PSL in Sacramento.

there are some good points, but racism in sacramento is beyond rampant.

In Yuba City(about an hour north of sac), at the High School there during lunch, the east indian students and the white students and the latino students all segregated themselves.

[Amphictyonis]

On the lighter side, the top US neo-nazi was killed in Sacramento yesterday.


Tom Metzinger (or however you spell his name)? Anyhow CA in general is seeing a rise in racism due to the jail/juvenile hall/prison culture the state is creating. NAZI's obviously have something to do with it as well as does poverty and misplaced anger.

[Robocommie]

So, having been aware of California's right wing tendencies for many a year, what exactly is the source of this nonsense? It's funny because most out here in flyover country consider California to be a hippy state, except of course both Nixon and Reagan came out of California, and there are these regional pockets of reactionary politics. But what causes it?

I was speaking with a good friend of mine just yesterday about Los Angeles, he's a historian specializing in Spanish colonialism in the American southwest and he lived in LA for a few. He was saying how even up until the 1940s the LAPD was largely a colonizing force because it was enforcing the control of an Anglo-American property class over a Spanish-speaking majority which had been established since early colonial times.

[Rusty Shackleford]

i think the "hippy state" and "peoples republic of california" mostly comes form the 60s and the huge drug culture that existed here. liberals here are sometimes just as reactionary as conservatives elsewhere though. and just because democrats get into office here doesnt mean progress is made.

outside of certain parts of LA and the Bay Area, California is VERY reactionary and right-wing.

part of it may be due to the massivity of the economy here. another may be the size of the state and another may actually be due to the large amount of diversity, ethnically speaking.

there is a lot of wealth in CA but it is not the majority that controls it, and in the wealthy suburbs it is mostly white people who are older. i lived in citrus heights, and the city next to me, organevale(clever name diversity eh?) is home to nazis and the klan, and granite bay is probably one of the wealthiest suburbs in the area. rocklin is probably right after that. then there is north highlands and carmichael which are every impoverished and more mixed.

sacramento is also very unequal in quality of living. places like fruitridge pale in comparison to a part of west-sacramento.

historically, california is very racist. anti-chinese laws, anti-japanese laws, anti-latino laws, repression and murder of afro-americans, and so on. it was legal to carry shotguns and rifles around until the BPP started doing it and marched into the capitol building.

and the fucking hipsters in SF are extremely a-political. the mission is getting gentrified right now. at around 6:00 the mission st. starts to get populated by a shit ton of affluent white youth who are out to bar hop while in the day on Ceasar Chavez street, latino men sit on the sidewalk waiting for work. the tenderloin sometimes looks like a ghetto. and even around the touristy areas homeless men and women sleep on the sidewalk while police harass immigrants. San Francisco is not inherently liberal or left leaning, it is made so by the presence of organizations and population. it is not the liberal hippy paradise people in the rest of the country make it out to be. in some places, it is hell.

fuck, even at the ANSWER office in SF there was White Nationalist graffiti right next to the building.

that view of california is mostly an external one that came from the 60s and somehow stuck. living here proves the exact opposite.

to amplify my point.
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UPDATE: man pleads guilty in attack on Sikh cab driver a few months ago.
http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=126991&catid=2



WOODLAND, CA - A Sacramento man Monday pleaded guilty to beating a cab driver in West Sacramento last November, according to the Yolo County District Attorney's Office.
As part of the guilty plea, Pedro Ramirez admitted that the attack was a hate crime motivated by his belief that the victim was a Muslim, according to prosecutors. The victim, Harbhajan Singh, is actually a Sikh.
Ramirez will be sentenced to 13 years in prison for the attack and a second attacker will be sentenced to a year in county jail and felony probation for his role in the beating, according to the District Attorney's Office. Sentencing is scheduled for April 1.
this article i just posted also raises another point. the playing off of one nation against another. judging by the assailants name, he is latino or of spanish/portugese descent. just because all non-whites are generally suppressed in this state doesnt not mean they are all in solidarity. there is still a lot of ethnic division that has been sewn by capitalism in this state.

Also, look at this: it is a percent change in latino and asion population. Placer is one of the more conservative counties in the area and this is obviously going to cause a HUGE reaction. this county includes cities like Roseville, Rocklin, and Auburn.
Source (http://laist.com/2011/03/08/los_angels_still_most_populated_ca.php)
http://laist.com/attachments/lindsayrebecca/CA-population-2010census.jpg



In all, racial prejudice must be smashed and internationalism must be promoted. Its almost reminiscent of the struggle for white-black working class unity under the communist party in harlem in the 30s.

[Magón]

I never really liked going to Sacramento. It always did have weird vibe to it. Never realized how large the neo-nazi community was there.

Wonder what my friend at work, who's a Sikh, has to say about it? The killings that is.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I never really liked going to Sacramento. It always did have weird vibe to it. Never realized how large the neo-nazi community was there.

Wonder what my friend at work, who's a Sikh, has to say about it? The killings that is.
They are very hard to see, but they do exist. these organizations in the area probably have at most 20-30 members but there are many organizations declared and undeclared.

there is also the tea party community and some sort of right wing group called the republic or something(i need to research them) which have hundreds of members and affiliates.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Where I live(About an hour/hour and a half away from Sacramento) there are a lot of racists too. Every person that looks Arabic/Middle Eastern/Indian will be a labeled a terrorist no matter what and are often times bullied of course and beaten up. I remember during these last local elections a lot of people in the city were making a big deal about "dirty" money being contributed to one of the candidates. It was dirty of course because it came from Indian(TERRORIST!!) businesspeople :rolleyes:.

[CAleftist]

California has plenty of reactionaries, both conservative and liberal.

From the Neo-Nazis in parts of the Central Valley, to the John Bircher types in Orange County, to the "enlightened capitalists" of the Silicon Valley, California has every type of right-wing reactionary imaginable.

Many of the more blatantly racist and xenophobic whites have moved out of the state to places like Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, etc., where there are more rich white people like them, and fewer Latinos, Asians, or blacks to make them feel "uneasy" or drive property values down. Many white liberals who have remained, especially in places like the Bay Area, like to have wealthy Asians around to give the illusion of "diversity."

You want further proof of CA's reactionary politics? Look no further than Prop 13.

[Amphictyonis]

It's funny because most out here in flyover country consider California to be a hippy state



Only so far as Oakland, San Fransisco and Los Angeles and we're still not hippy these days/. In between is a huge plot of land thats basically run by farm workers. Delano, Fresno etc... even the so called "radical" areas are basically liberal(Oak-SF). Farm workers are our friends! This is why you see some anger from me on this site every now and then......I see first hand the utter meaninglessness of our struggle in the so called most "progressive" place in America(San Fransisco). I only use the term 'meaninglessness' not because our cause is meaningless but b3caue our goals can't be achieved under the current political paradigm by middle class students and intellectuals.

EDIT:

NOW IS THE TIME!!!!!!

[Rusty Shackleford]

The reward for finding the killer is now near $30,000!

[wunderbar]

there is also the tea party community and some sort of right wing group called the republic or something(i need to research them) which have hundreds of members and affiliates.

I'm not familiar with the republic, but I've found the Central Valley section of Indybay to be a good resource for gathering info on local far-right groups.

[Hoplite]

This is part of why I love LA. I can walk through my neighborhood and hear French, German, English, Armenian, Spanish, Greek, Afrikaans, as well as Arabic and no one so much as bats an eye. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a multi-racial paradise, but being racially different doesn't automatically earn you a place at the back of the bus because there really is no dominant racial group in my neighborhood.

[Magón]

They are very hard to see, but they do exist. these organizations in the area probably have at most 20-30 members but there are many organizations declared and undeclared.

there is also the tea party community and some sort of right wing group called the republic or something(i need to research them) which have hundreds of members and affiliates.

Yeah, I've definitely seen them there once or twice before. One was even wearing a swastika patch on a jacket, and gave me a look when I glanced at it.


This is part of why I love LA. I can walk through my neighborhood and hear French, German, English, Armenian, Spanish, Greek, Afrikaans, as well as Arabic and no one so much as bats an eye. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a multi-racial paradise, but being racially different doesn't automatically earn you a place at the back of the bus because there really is no dominant racial group in my neighborhood.

LA is still fairly cut up race wise though. I mean, not everywhere in LA. I have Mexican friends that live in an area similar to yours where they have blacks next door, asians across the street, and other different races around the neighborhood too. But as far as White and Colors go together, it's still cut up.

And you can never forget the '92 Race Riots that saw all races in their little communities, sheltered up and defending their 'turf' from one another.

[Jimmie Higgins]

So, having been aware of California's right wing tendencies for many a year, what exactly is the source of this nonsense? It's funny because most out here in flyover country consider California to be a hippy state, except of course both Nixon and Reagan came out of California, and there are these regional pockets of reactionary politics. But what causes it?Rusty answered this really well. I think too that California has long been dominated by a handful of major industries. The large growers have been powerful for the entire history of California and hired thugs to beat migrants, communists, and unionizing workers back in the depression as well as in the 1960s. Early California was dominated by industrial "barons" and the political landscape was dominated by powerful right-wing newspaper owners like the infamous LA Times owners who were so anti-union that eventually someone bombed the Times building in the early 20th century (it's disputed if this was done by pro-union people though).



But some important labor and social movements did make significant and long-lasting dents into business-power in the state. It's really the depression (when the CP increased rapidly and became a big force - recognized as major players in the general strike in SF, agricultural battles) and the radical movements of the 1960s (free-speech, organizing Latino farmworkers, black radical movements, etc) that provided more room for popular and working class politics.

Here in Oakland, the Republicans dominated politics (and this was also the California hub for the KKK) until the general strike after WWII. In San Francisco, the much more important general strike helped create a strong working class that was not as easily influenced or disoriented by red-baiting... hell, there are still public buildings here named after Harry Bridges and there are public murals from that era about the strong working class of the SF Bay Area. The legacy of the strike meant that San Francisco was more immune to the red-scares after the war and so this created a more open life here compared to the rest of the US in the 1950s and gave the bay area an edge when radicalization picked-up in the 1960s. The only things that really changed that situation in the Bay Area was gentrification and that the docks were moved to Oakland and have become more automated - the ILWU is still one of the more progressive and militant unions in the entire country though. Basically SF went from being a big working class town to pushing workers out of the city. Now there are basically two real working class communities left because housing prices have pushed most of the working class to the outlying areas.

LA, on the other hand suffered a big loss when the IWW had a really heroic strike in the early 20th century. That loss made it more difficult for industrial organizing in LA for a long time and even today it is not much of a union-town compared to what SF used to be. But there is a huge working class that still lives in LA and things like the Justice for Janitors campaign show that it is really ripe for a labor revival. There are many problems though - it is very segregated in LA, big industries and developers still dominate politics there in a major way (Adrain Brode, for example) and of course probably the most racist and brutal urban police force this side of Chicago.

[Robocommie]

i think the "hippy state" and "peoples republic of california" mostly comes form the 60s and the huge drug culture that existed here. liberals here are sometimes just as reactionary as conservatives elsewhere though. and just because democrats get into office here doesnt mean progress is made.

Yeah, that same friend of mine who had lived in LA was telling me about this local distribution newspaper that was apparently extremely popular with the white liberal crowd in LA, and he said the whole thing just reeked of white, affluent liberal elitism and unconscious bigotry.

And it's interesting how much isn't known about California's history to the national consciousness, just last autumn I read this fascinating article that was talking about how California also had a lot of housing segregation laws on the books, not just the Deep South.

[Hoplite]

What always blows my mind is people have this image of California as this hugely liberal state. We actually arent. Our governors tend to be Republican and virtually everywhere outside San Fransisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego are hardcore Republican aside from a few enclaves like Santa Cruz

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Even in Santa Cruz I saw a crowd of teabaggers the tax day after obama was elected (i think that was when they got big)