Why Nikki Haley Has Sikhs ANGRY and EXCITED
Yo, what’s good? I’m not sure if y’all have heard, but Nikki Haley is running to be the GOP candidate for president. Seems like her running excited some Sikhs and angered others. While I want to pretend I don’t really care, seeing my whole timeline flooded with this definitely piqued my curiosity.
I ought to keep scrolling since, you know, I supposedly don’t care, but I’m also feeling compelled to offer my two cents on how stupid I think it is that so many Sikhs particularly care. For some, she’s a groundbreaker, a potential queen entering one of the world’s greatest spectacles. The great hope for conservative idealism, who will usher in and lead the great democracy of the United States to its greatest hits. A first-ballot perennial All-Star, whose sheer existence will educate the masses, both in Punjab and among Sikh people from where her ancestors once came.
But other people don’t see Nikki as a person, they see a cunning political gladiator who worked the system and, like a chameleon, blended into her surroundings, rising up to be the governor of South Carolina. They see the brave daughter of Sardarajit Singh, a powerful woman who understood the obstacles and uphill battles and selflessly gave up her name and faith to raise her people up. Someone who, under Trump, was a pride of Punjab, tapped to be America’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Someone whose political maneuvering was all done so she could claim her seat as Queen of the realm, from where she would then lift her people up.
And for the rest of us, we just see Nikki, the one born in America who didn’t want anything to do with her faith or culture, getting contacts at first sight and embracing whatever semblance she could to fit in. Someone who in 2001 listed herself as white on her voter card, and someone who spent most of her past campaigns playing into the ‘Yes master, no master, I’m not one of them troublesome brown people’ tropes.
Who knows, maybe she did come around, and during her time in Trump’s administration, seemed to embrace her past and even started acknowledging her family’s cultural history. After all, when she visited the Darbar Sahib in 2013 and was moved to tears by its splendor, that moment really tugged at the heartstrings of Sikhs around the world. The modern-day homecoming that the diaspora never got. But maybe she’s just a politician, not all that different from all the others, who can lean on her brownest when convenient, while affording herself an alibi of embracing whiteness when it’s not.
I got nothing against Nikki or Nimrata, or whatever else you want to call her. I don’t even think she has a particularly good chance of being the GOP candidate for president, but I’m also guessing that’s not why she’s running. She’s just got to make enough noise to prove to be a useful enough vote bank for whoever does win to get the nod to be VP. Before y’all read into this as some hate targeting her because she’s a Republican, and to think I’d be more sympathetic to her if she was team blue instead of team red in this political game of capture the flag, y’all got me wrong. All it comes down to is accepting that she don’t give a [hoot] about us, that she herself doesn’t see herself as one of us.
So, for Punjabis or Sikhs to try and Six Degrees of Separation her into their common bloodline, y’all got it twisted. Just like some desperate folks try to find a common thread with the current VP, Kamala Harris, just give it up. It’s not there, and it’s never happening. The self-affirmation you all are seeking is disturbing enough, but more importantly, it ain’t coming. She’s not gonna turn around and blast Modi at her campaign rallies or raise Punjab’s water issues. If anything, stick with candidates like Harmeet Dhillon if you’re so keen on supporting a Punjabi Republican. Clap for the Tim Uppals and the Jasraj Singh Halls, or the Paramjit Singh Sarkarias in the conservative parties of Canada. But let Nikki go. She ain’t gonna accept your friend request, and that’s okay.