De-Islamizing Sikhaphobia, A Summary And Analysis

In “De-Islamizing Sikhaphobia: Deconstructing Structural Racism in Wisconsin Gurdwara Shooting 10/12”, Birk, Gill, and Heer (2015) examine the media portrayal of the shooting of a Sikh gurdwara in 2012 where a gunman killed six individuals and injured four others. The media representation of the Sikh community after this event demonstrates how racialized individuals are Othered by the media, especially through the homogenization of brown bodies, despite the diversity of this racialized group (Birk et al. 2015:98). Many Canadians and Americans see the Muslim and Sikh communities as the same, and as a result, many acts of violence have been committed against Sikhs although the intended target was Muslims, particularly after the September 11th …show more content…
These instances demonstrate the discourse of binary polarization, which according to Henry and Tator (2010: 14), refers to the distinction between “we”, the mainstream Canadian society, and “them”, the inferiorized culture who have undesireable traits and values. The Othered group is placed outside of the Canadian national identity because they do not belong to mainstream society due to the separation of values and beliefs (Henry & Tator 2010: …show more content…
Structural racism is evident in the erasure of race from the coverage of the trial, including the emphasis on culture. The use of culture as an explanation for why the Shafia murders occurred created a polarization between Western culture and Muslim culture, in which the Othered Muslim culture is inferiorized and marginalized. Muslim culture is also isolated in the aftermath of the gurdwara shooting, because the Sikh community attempted to separate themselves from Islam in order to belong to the national