On Friday, two frail and elderly Sikh men were gunned down in cold blood as they went for a walk in a suburb of Sacramento.
Surinder Singh, 67, died Friday afternoon on the sidewalk along East Stockton Boulevard near Geneva Pointe Drive. Gurmej Atwal, his 78-year-old friend, was shot twice in the chest. His family said he was in critical but stable condition [link]
Authorities have admitted that they have no other motive for the crime (they weren’t robbed, they didn’t pick a fight at the club the night before, they weren’t kingpins of organized crime families), so it looks very likely that this was a hate crime. The FBI have been contacted, and hopefully will be investigating.
What boggles my mind is both the kind of coward who would shoot two old men (both heart attack survivors and frail) and the kind of virulent hatred which would motivate them to single out these two men, in broad daylight, in a quiet suburb. What kind of twisted person would think this was a good thing to do?
He has dreadlocks. He’s a Rasta. He just came back from recording in Jamaica. He comes straight outta Oakland with a home base in So Cal. And he’s got Sri Lankan blood pumping through his veins. I’ve interviewed Ras Ceylon before here at Sepia Mutiny, and lucky for you, Ras Ceylon just dropped a mixtape street album last week. Titled Gideon.Force Vol.1 (named after Haile Selassie’s Ethiopian army), the album is fantastic anthology of Ras Ceylon’s musical work over the past few years.
Drawing on his Sri Lankan roots and Rastafarian faith, Ras Ceylon brings a unique sound intertwining a revolutionary message with head nodding beats. Gideon.Force Vol.1 is a mixtape, compiling collaborations with various emcees and producers from Oakland to L.A. to New York to Jamaica. The album features major artists such as Munga Honorable (Jamaica), Shabaam Sahdeeq (NYC), Norris Man (Jamaica) and includes original remixes of collaborations with stic.man of Dead Prez and Tragedy Khadafi (NYC). True to mixtape nature, laced throughout the album are clips of Davey D. of Hard Knock Radio interviewing Ras Ceylon about his journey.[rasceylonblog]
His tracks show a clear connection to his musical inspirations – Public Enemy and Bob Marley. The track 4 Aiyana Jones hits the listener hard as a revolutionary anthem with lyrics on the epidemic of senseless police brutality while his first single Aluta Continua (Struggle Goes On) has a strong island feel and dancehall undertones. Whether head bouncing beats to spreading the message of substance abuse with the song The Question or the spiritually produced song Jah Livez spreading the message of God living in the hearts of all, Ras Ceylon’s lyrics calls for repeat listens. [rasceylonblog] Continue reading →
When you hear the words “Orange County,” I’m sure you have an image that comes to your head very much like the ones on television shows “The O.C.” or “The Real Wives of Orange County.” The image I have, after having organized there for the past two years, is very different. The O.C. is a largely diverse county, with a “minority majority” where only 45% of the population is White and 17% of the population of Asian descent, according to the recent 2009 Census report. The largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam resides in Garden Grove in Little Saigon, and Santa Ana is an epicenter of the Latino population. And of course, the Muslims. There is a large population of Muslims scattered across the county – in fact, according to a religious study from 2000, it is the 5th most popular religion in the county, representing 1.4 percent of the population of The O.C. I’m sure the statistics on this will be different if you look at 2011 result of the region on religion.
Why am I telling you about this other perspective of Orange County? To give you context as you watch this video, released by CAIR-LA on Wednesday.
The above video was filmed at a rally in February, outside of a fundraiser for the Islamic Circle of North America, a charity driven international Muslim organization.
The event – held at Yorba Linda Community Center, a facility that has been frequented by Muslim families and businesses over the years – first became a target of anti-Muslim bigots over two of the fundraiser’s speakers, who were to speak on the importance of charity in Islam. [cair-la]
What was most disturbing to me, albeit not surprising since I’ve had to build relationships with Electeds in this region, is the statements that came from the politicians that spoke at the rally. Councilwoman Deborah Pauly clearly implied that all the Muslims should be murdered. In light of what happened with the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, due to the hate sentiments fueled in the community (as well as by Sarah Palin) and a lunatic eventually retaliating with a gun shot in to head… Well. Can Deborah Pauly really be that ignorant to not make a connection that her words could have the same effect? Or maybe she knows, and simply doesn’t care.
Villa Park Councilwoman, Deborah Pauly, while addressing the crowd at the rally, appeared to threaten Muslim event-goers. Congressman Ed Royce (R-40), in a troubling trend of disparaging Islam and its followers, added fuel to the fire by encouraging protesters to continue on with their hate-mongering. The attendance of Congressman Gary Miller (R-42) was a clear surprise, since he previously has engaged with all constituents, including Muslims, toward a better America. [cair-la]
The students — 8 currently at UC Irvine and 3 UC Riverside graduates — were charged with with two misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to disturb a meeting and disturbance of the meeting by the Orange County District Attorney’s office on Friday, only a few days after a protest was staged outside of the DA’s office in support of the so-called ‘Irvine 11.’
Continue reading →
In December, I was in Delhi’s brand new Terminal 3, waiting with my mother for a flight to Chennai. The terminal itself is pretty consistent with most such new constructions in India – one enters and is immediately transported to Anywhere, Cosmopolitania – shiny floors, ginormous ads for stylish bathroom fixtures, and food courts featuring the generic and exotic (Subway and dosas, respectively).
Eventually we made our way to the gate, where we listened to the departure announcements.
Friends, it was hilarious.
First, an automated voice would make an announcement in English butchering the pronunciation of the destination city (presumably for the phoreign ear). A few seconds later, the announcement in Hindi would pronounce the city name perfectly.
Here’s what Twitter addicts everywhere already know: Twitter isn’t just a social media tool, it’s a lifestyle. Spend a certain amount of regular time on the website interacting with folks and if the stars align, you’ll find yourself with a good group of friends, a search engine more specialized than Google, a date or two, news in real time and much more. But for one person, Twitter may literally be a life-saver.
I’ve been following Arizona-based Kirti Dwivedi on Twitter for over a year now and her updates about her parents, who she lovingly tweets about as #TinyMom and #TinyDad, have always brought a smile to my face. But I didn’t know that Kirti’s mother has been suffering from kidney disease for the last 10 years and that she desperately needed a kidney transplant. On Sunday, while absent-mindedly playing with my phone, I saw this tweet from Kirti, “What has social media done for you? It helped me find a kidney donor for my mom…”
Turns out that Kirti, being the social media addict she is, turned to Twitter and Facebook to see if she could find a kidney donor for #TinyMom. Kirti told me via email, “Unfortunately, neither my brother nor I are blood type matches for my mother.” Neither was #TinyDad. After Amy Donohue, one of Kirti’s Twitter friends, checked out the informational Facebook page Kirti had created, Amy offered to donate her own kidney.
Anu Dwivedi’s daughter, Kirti, is the one who brought the two together. She started a Facebook page educating people about her mother’s kidney disease.
Eventually, Kirti started chatting with Amy Donohue via Twitter about the Facebook page, and their friendship progressed to phone calls. One day, Donohue told her something she’ll never forget. 

”Her words to me were, ‘You have two kidneys. I have one mom. So, let me see how I can help you out,'” Kirti said. [Link.] Continue reading →
It is well known that in Western Europe the south of Italy is the poorest region. It is less well known, though not totally surprising, that regions of northern Italy such as Lombardy are among the wealthier areas of Western Europe. The aggregation of some of Europe’s wealthiest and poorest regions into one nation, Italy, obscures some very interesting fine scale trends. But since this is a weblog about brown-folk I’m not going to be discussing variance in statistics across the European Union. Rather, I want to address the issue of variance of statistics, and culture, across South Asia. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka (Bhutan is so small that I will leave it out of this treatment).
Intuitively we know that comparing Sri Lanka to India, or India to Pakistan, is apples and oranges. In terms of administrative units in the post-Westphalian age they’re equivalent, but we know that a nation of 20 million (Sri Lanka) and one of over 1 billion (India) are ludicrously mismatched. Even when comparing Pakistan to India, you have to face the fact that one state of India, Uttar Pradesh, is more populous than all of Pakistan! If Uttar Pradesh was a nation unto itself it would be the fifth most populous in the world. Continue reading →
![Surinder-Singh[1].jpg](http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/Surinder-Singh%5B1%5D.jpg)
![Gurmej-Atwal[1].jpg](http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/Gurmej-Atwal%5B1%5D.jpg)
Authorities have admitted that they have no other motive for the crime (they weren’t robbed, they didn’t pick a fight at the club the night before, they weren’t kingpins of organized crime families), so it looks very likely that this was a hate crime. The FBI have been contacted, and hopefully will be investigating.
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