Even non-Sikh Punjabis tend to be extroverts :)
Being a sikh confused for a muslim is bad, but the implicit assumption that being a muslim is somehow worse is also bad.
Re:Weirdos in the depression
by dragontamer on Wednesday June 03, 2020 @01:33PM
(#23406137)
Well, for me specifically, it was just kind of embarrassing to be the ignorant one.
Its like, I'm going over to my Muslim neighbor to see their birthday party. Later on... well... actually they were Sikh and I was ignorant and didn't know the difference until I asked them.
Fortunately, my neighbors must have been very familiar with the confusion, because they handled the discussion "what is a Sikh" pretty well.
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During 9/11 itself, I was in Catholic school. The teachers made it very clear that we needed to learn more about other religions at the time. So we visited local Churches, Synagogues and Mosques as part of various field trips. So I was familiar with Muslims, Jews, Protestants.
But we never visited a Sikh temple. I simply didn't know that religion even existed until I met my neighbors a few years later.
I think it's more like, if you assume that someone is Italian and then find out that they're Mexican, it's awkward that you made an incorrect assumption about their ethnicity despite the assumption being neutral in terms of judgment.
Re:Weirdos in the depression
by thunfischbrot on Wednesday June 03, 2020 @12:51PM
(#23405573)
Yes, it seems that the weirdness of the mentioned interactions does not mainly stems from the confusion of the faith. It's based on people expressing their judgement of you as a person in relation to their perceived faith.
10 years ago, my neighbors were Sikh (I moved since then). They had all sorts of stories about how 9/11 got them confused with Muslims.
They were pretty big extroverts, and threw a lot of parties, and came to virtually every neighborhood party. But I can't help but think that they felt the need to socialize, to make sure their neighbors knew who they were.
Those parties are how I learned what a Sikh was. Before that, I did think they were Muslim. So it worked. But yeah, it probably sucks that they had to work extra hard to make sure people understood who they were.