Behind the Scenes — The Daily Show Covers Sikhs in America

On April 25, the Daily Show aired a segment “Confused Islamophobes Target American Sikhs”. In it Hasan Minhaj interviews Waris, a Sikh who had recently been targeted in an airport, as well as a panel of other Sikhs (including yours truly). He offers us some ‘constructive’ advice on how to manage Islamophobia as a Sikh.

The segment was set up by a group I’ve been involved with since the aftermath from 9/11, the Sikh Coalition. The organization deals with serious issues ranging from hate crimes like assaults to even murders; employment discrimination where people are suddenly fired or sent to work out of sight; and school safety — ensuring kids are not threatened or assaulted.

While many of these issues started with Sikhs because of the often very visible difference in appearance, it became clear years ago that the cause was intolerance and fear of anything marked as “other.” It quickly became routine to work with other communities including Asian and African American groups, LGBT communities (particularly in school settings), religious groups, and other partners because the underlying prejudice we are trying to combat comes from the same well of ignorance.

The consequences of hate and intolerance are serious topics — neither light nor funny. Still, the Daily Show’s use of humor to call out the absurdity of it all resonated in a unique way. Working with their team you see a clear priority on making the segment funny and entertaining — but they aren’t afraid of conveying a message. In a normal setting, as a Sikh, I want to explain to people who Sikhs are and what we believe. I want people to know we are our own unique faith. Yet in the context of Islamophobia today, its personally unacceptable to pronounce that and implicitly suggest that the phobia is correct but not appropriately targeted. The team at the Daily Show absurdly and hilariously inverted that paradox with Hassan, a Muslim, interviewing a bunch of Sikhs refusing to simply point the finger.

What the Daily Show so often recognizes in its segments is how difficult it is for each of us to establish beliefs counter to our direct experience. If everyone around us believes a set of people are terrorists, immoral, lazy, don’t share our values, etc. we tend to adopt those beliefs. It’s important to move beyond that, but there is a more straightforward first step. Meet and interact with people that are not “just like us”. We discover what makes us happy (food) or sad (loss), hopes for future generations (become star athletes), beliefs in what’s right (your spouse even if they’re not), and many other of the most important things in life (JK Rowling commencement speech) are shared. It turns out despite all the apparent differences the vast majority of all of us are similar in the ways that matter most.

At each step of the process the Daily Show team sought to find a deeper understanding of the material they were covering. The lesson of using diverse interactions with others to increase our understanding (vs simply reconfirming our beliefs) is one we can all take forward to improve our perspectives — and apparently our senses of humor.