USA Sikhs Blast 'Raghead' Comment Directed At S.C. Candidate

Sikhs Blast 'Raghead' Comment Directed at S.C. Candidate
Monday June 7, 2010


WASHINGTON (RNS) The "raghead" comment aimed at South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley was unfair, uncalled for and unreasonable, Sikh advocacy groups said.

"It is a very unfortunate situation," said Gurinder Singh Mann, director of the Center for Sikh and Punjab Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "The color of her skin or her background should not be a consideration for whatever she is trying to achieve."

During an interview on the Internet talk show "Pub Politics," state Sen. Jake Knotts said of Haley, "We've already got a raghead in the White House, we don't need another raghead in the governor's mansion."

Knotts also said Haley's campaign was orchestrated by Sikhs in foreign countries; Haley is of Indian descent and was raised a Sikh but converted to Christianity as an adult.

"I don't think that there are any Sikh associations planning on those lines," Singh Mann said.

Knotts, who supports Haley's Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, has since apologized. He said his "intended humorous context was lost in translation" and Haley was "pretending to be someone she is not."

The Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, also criticized Knotts' apology.

"Calling her religion into question, as Sen. Knotts continued to do in his apology, is wrong enough -- using the language he did is repulsive and demonstrates his own lack of knowledge about how to conduct himself as a public servant," Gaddy said in a statement.

Singh Mann did not believe the apology.

"It's sad... I guess he's using the term that it was a distasteful joke taken out of context but, you know, that's the sort of routine explanation," he said.

-- Fernando Alfonso III
Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

Source: Sikhs Blast 'Raghead' Comment Directed at S.C. Candidate - News

Though she is traitor of sikh religion yet some liberal sikhs are coming in for her defence.
Would the same sikh group have objected if raghead word is used for africam american or any other community?

Kanwardeep Singh ji

Yes.

One of those "liberal" Sikh Groups SALDEF, did just that...

Tell South Carolina Senator Knotts You Are Not a “Raghead”


June 4, 2010 (Washington, D.C.) — This morning the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) called upon South Carolina State Senator Jake Knotts to apologize for racist remarks he made yesterday. On a local internet talk show, Pub Politics, Senator Knotts said, “We’ve already got a raghead in the White House, we don’t need another raghead in the governor’s mansion,” about President Barack Obama and a candidate for governor in the upcoming elections in South Carolina.


Join SALDEF in asking South Carolina Republican State Senator Jake Knotts to apologize for the unmerited and hate filled comments that he made yesterday referring to both President Barack Obama and South Carolina State Representative and Gubernatorial candidate Nikky Haley as ragheads.

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http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/saldef/30811-tell-south-carolina-senator-knotts-you.html

Narayanjot Kaur said:

Kanwardeep Singh ji

Yes.

One of those "liberal" Sikh Groups SALDEF, did just that...

http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/saldef/30811-tell-south-carolina-senator-knotts-you.html

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Well He also said obama raghead along with nikki so that's why they are asking him to apologise
O/W america has 50 states and I don't know how many times candidates use to abusive language against each other,never heard sikh organisations jumping and asking persons to apologise

Nikky Haley won the election last night! She is now the Republican nominee for governer in the State of South Carolina. She now must face her opponent from the Democratic Party in the gubernatorial election in November.

Kanwardeep Singh said:

Well He also said obama raghead along with nikki so that's why they are asking him to apologise
O/W america has 50 states and I don't know how many times candidates use to abusive language against each other,never heard sikh organisations jumping and asking persons to apologise

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Kanwardeep ji

I also do not remember a time when any candidate was called a "raghead" during an election, publicly, by another elected official, on a television program. So Sikh organizations would not have reason to protest previously

Narayanjot Kaur said:

Kanwardeep ji

I also do not remember a time when any candidate was called a "raghead" during an election, publicly, by another elected official, on a television program. So Sikh organizations would not have reason to protest previously

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Honestly tell me if Nikki does not have sikh background then would sikh organisations have protested if she has been called raghead.90%of chances are they would not

Honestly tell me if Nikki does not have sikh background then would sikh organisations have protested if she has been called raghead.90%of chances are they would not

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Actually not quite right. Although not on the "raghead" point -- but relative to wearing articles of faith, SALDEV has been on the forefront of challenging laws that forbid waring articles of faith (including turban) on behalf of Sikhs, and also Muslims and Orthodox Jews.

That is probably more significant than name-calling "raghead" or any other derogatory name, because religious expression is being respected. The current state where SALDEF is at work is my own state of Pennsylvania. Like South Carolina, there are layers of culture that promote racism and intolerance. SALDEF is relentless, and understands that liberty and dignity denied to any group denies liberty and dignity to every group.

I do not live in South Carolina, am not a Republican, therefore would not vote anyway for Nikki Haley. In my view on a national level she is not the big story. The big story? In state where Jesse Knotts represents the tip of the ice-berg, the layers of prejudice run very deep. Yet some people were able to denounce his pubic bigotry, and in the end overcome it. These included both the political party and the people who voted for her.

Progress is real, even when perfection is a long way off.

To call someone "Raghead" is offensive and shows ignorance because these bigots link that with Osama Bin Laden and Muslims and Senator Knotts did that by claiming that we already have one in the White House. I am sure he has no idea between the difference of a Sikh and a Muslim and that most of the people who wear turbans are Sikhs.

Sen. Jake Knotts has put himself in the knot of ignorance with his remarks. It shows how hatred, intolerance, disdain and anger is filled in these kinds of bigots who have no idea what our Founding Fathers meant when they wrote the Bill of Rights.

He should be invited to a Gurdwara in his hometown so that we can share our hospitality of Langar and Pangat with him so that he can realise what equality truly means.

Now coming back to Nikki Haley, she is a Methodist now which is one of millions of Christian denominations. She converted to Christianity at 24 and is married to a Methodist as well.

If her policies go against the Gurmat values then no Sikh should vote for her. They should try to campaign against her and convince the non- Sikhs to do the same as Sikhi values of justice and equality for all are universal.

Her Sikhi heritage matters naught because one is not born a Sikh but becomes one.

Tejwant Singh

I am not a Sikh

Jun 10th 2010, 14:00 by M.S.

NIKKI HALEY may have actually gained support in South Carolina because of accusations by two politically interested men that she had extramarital dalliances with them, reports Robbie Brown in the New York Times. Which is all to the good. It might be nice if South Carolina politics could whip up such a maelstrom of extramarital affair hype, of indeterminate accuracy, over the course of a few years that voters become exhausted by it and the political incentive to make such charges evaporates.

Ms Haley's religion would, similarly, not be a big deal, if it weren't for her increasing tendency to use the word "Christ" as often as possible. The intent is clearly to assure religious voters that when she says "God", she means the Christian God, not the Sikh one. I have to say, as a non-Christian, that the presence of political pressure on a candidate to advertise her specific faith in Jesus Christ creeps me out. But it doesn't creep me out as much as this: it turns out that the South Carolina constitution bars anyone who "denies the existence of the Supreme Being" from holding any state office. In a 1997 case, the state Supreme Court ruled that this was unconstitutional and couldn't be enforced (in a case in which an atheist notary public aspirant had crossed out the words "so help me God" on the oath of service). So the federal constitution's rule against "tests" of religion for public office has been upheld. But this seems to me to set up a don't ask-don't tell situation. What if a sitting governor, apart from any such test, were to just get up and announce: "There is no God"? And it turns out South Carolina is just one of nine states that have similar laws on the books!


Not that this law would bar me from serving anyway; I believe absolutely in the existence of a Supreme Being. Her name is Aretha Franklin. But for those of lesser faith, this seems very unfair.


source:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/06/south_carolina_religion

Liberal sikh sites like sikhchic.com published several article on nikki delibirately hiding the fact that she is converted to christianity.Several times in articles she was mentioned as namrata kaur randhwa.Some sikh girls wrote comments their that nikki is an inspiration.After reading some of those articles I was just thinking that today's sikhs are so desperate for worldly success that they even forgot whom they are writing article for?

Soul Jyot ji

My reflections based only on first hand experience of the American political process. And I have tried to describe how it works and where its own special lunacy can be seen.

Soul_jyot said:

I am not a Sikh

Jun 10th 2010, 14:00 by M.S.


NIKKI HALEY may have actually gained support in South Carolina because of accusations by two politically interested men that she had extramarital dalliances with them, reports Robbie Brown in the New York Times. Which is all to the good. It might be nice if South Carolina politics could whip up such a maelstrom of extramarital affair hype, of indeterminate accuracy, over the course of a few years that voters become exhausted by it and the political incentive to make such charges evaporates.

More than once during a hotly contested primary campaign one side has taken the extreme strategy of using character assassination to try to get the advantage. The accusations of extra-marital affairs is only one such ploy. It is not unusual for the electorate to become nauseated by this, and a percentage of the vote will be a sympathy vote for the candidate being accused. The sympathy vote will make a difference, but only in races that are close races. If there is already a wide-margin between candidates, the sympathy vote won't really matter, and the people indulging in character assassination have basically wasted everyone's time and energy.


...it turns out that the South Carolina constitution bars anyone who "denies the existence of the Supreme Being" from holding any state office. In a 1997 case, the state Supreme Court ruled that this was unconstitutional and couldn't be enforced (in a case in which an atheist notary public aspirant had crossed out the words "so help me God" on the oath of service). So the federal constitution's rule against "tests" of religion for public office has been upheld. ...And it turns out South Carolina is just one of nine states that have similar laws on the books!


... There are 50 states in the United States and the political culture of each one is as different from the other as night is from day. Hard to believe, but true. Electoral laws are determined at the state-level and not the federal level. So what we see in the comment above is a good example of how the federal government does and must intervene when state laws lie outside of the protections of the US constitution. There is a court test. The political history of the US is a long saga of state government and federal government having this conversation. Over time, over time, over time, these court tests have brought the federal and state levels of government into closer alignment. It was not always true. In the early days of the republic as much self-determination as possible was left to the states. It took a bloody Civil War to test the theory of "states" rights. And only 150 years later the supremacy of states must still be tested in the federal courts. Democracy is a messy business.

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[FONT=Arial, Geneva]"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." ( Winston Churchill, from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947)[/FONT]


BTW This was probably not the kind of race where a sympathy vote can make a difference. Nikki Haley was running against 3 other candidates in the Republication party all seeking to be the Republican nominee for Governor in SC. A 4-way split would give each candidates 25 percent of the vote. 50 percent of the vote is required to avoid second, run-off election. Nikki Haley managed to inch toward 51 percent, thereby avoiding a run-off election. In other words, she trounced her 3 opponents.