Is there anything 
can't be used for?
Yeah, I know, inappropriate humour and not really the point.
Posted on 05/16/2006 7:51:05 AM PDT by my_jai_05
It's hard to beat a morning walk. The cool air, the freshness of spring and the topper, getting pelted in the back by half a roll of duct tape. Hate crime or the idiot factor? You decide. Parmjit Kaur Pannu was taking her daily walk in her neighborhood close to the intersection of Hosking and Akers roads, near Ridgeview High. The 63-year-old Pannu is a Sikh and was dressed in traditional Punjabi dress, a kameez -- a long shirt called a salwar -- a pajama looking bottom and a chunni, a long scarf, worn over the shoulder. She lives with her husband Avtar Pannu and her son Jaspal Pannu and his wife and young family. Her son Jaspal drives a truck for Frito-Lay. Avtar, her husband, works at Grimmway Farms. They've been in Bakersfield for 21/2 years. Tim Everton, a neighbor of Pannu's, saw her get pelted by the duct tape. "She was about to turn the corner of the street we live on when a shiny red pickup slowed to allow the passenger enough of a chance to pitch an object at her and hit her in the back (it turned out to be a roll of duct tape) and also to allow this old woman, and anyone else present, to hear the stream of obscenities being hurled," Everton wrote. "The 'crime' she was committing was relishing in the beautiful spring day in Bakersfield and maybe enjoying her life, liberty and pursuit of happiness a bit too much in the eyes of those rogues. Or perhaps it was the darker skin and the sari over her shoulders." Everton called the police. They came and took a report, but told him they couldn't do anything unless Pannu wants to pursue it. She doesn't. She just wants to be able to take a morning walk without getting hurt. "The incident shook my longstanding belief in the innate goodness of man," Everton writes. "This shouldn't happen here in southwest Bakersfield or anywhere else in this city, state, or in this country." Her son Jaspal said he knows many Indians to whom something similar has happened. People throwing beer bottles, yelling and cussing. It's education, or the lack of it. Usually, the more you know about somebody, the more you understand and the less you hate or fear. At least, it sounds good. There are more than 25,000 Sikhs in Kern County, according to Nazar Kooner, a local farmer in Arvin. Many of the Sikhs (Sikh means student) came here in the early '80s to work in the carrot fields at Bolthouse and Grimmway. Word of mouth brought friends and family from New Jersey and New York. If you ever wondered why so many Sikhs are named Singh, which means lion, it's because Singh was the name of an important Sikh leader who told fellow Sikhs to fight back when attacked. "What happens is that Sikhs are frequently misidentified as Middle Easterners," Kooner said. "India is 6,000 miles away from Iraq. We think differently and have absolutely different cultures. We are not those bad terrorists." That's probably what happened to the grandmother in south Bakersfield taking a walk. It's a geography problem. However, even if she were Middle Eastern, this is no way to treat fellow Americans.
Blue turban on the males, too, I think.
I think this may be another reason people are so enraged at being accused of anti-immigrant bigotry.
Attacking people who are different is a common occurrence. I've had rocks thrown at me along with curses of 'faggot', because I happened to be wearing yellow tennis shoes. I'm not gay (not that there's anything wrong with that :-). Face it, the world is full of lunkheaded knuckledraggers. That's why I support the right to carry. At least then if it gets serious you have a chance to put some holes in one of these fools.
-Eric
You had YELLOW shoes!? Probably Coverse All-Stars!
Get off this board; we don't like your kind here.
/joking. I wore black check Vans in high school, I can't talk about bad fashion choices./
I would ditch the turban, even in California.It is a requirement of their religion.
-Eric
"Attacking people who are different is a common occurrence."
Exactly. My son just had a run-in with a group of Mexicans in a car in NM. Mexicans starting yelling F...You...N......!
Knuckleheads will always be with us...so will the good folks.
(Love the Seinfeld reference).
Is there anything can't be used for?
Yeah, I know, inappropriate humour and not really the point.
This is exactly why I advised the Sihks running the 7-11 on the corner to put a flag up on 9/11.
The men wear turbans. Usually, but not always, they're light blue. A neighbour was wearing a Red, White and (dark) Blue turban for a few months, back in late 2001 and early 2002.
*Shrug* in my area thousands of devout Hindus proudly wear theirs.
That doesn't excuse the criminal behaviour of the ignorant, bigoted, low-IQ, knuckledragging duct-tape throwers.
Yrs. Duct tape is not good at loosening things.
That's what the WD-40 is for...
Oy, bad info here. The outfit is called "salwar kameez", translating directly to mean "pants shirt". The pants are the salwar, the shirt is the kameez. The chunni part is correct, although it can also be called a dupatta. (I know this is totally unrelated to the main point of the article, but if journalists are going to write about Indians, they should get the vocabulary right!)
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