Washington : ‘Sikh Captain America’ has vowed to fight the ‘rise in bigotry’ he sees in Donald Trump’s America,a ccording to PTI. Vishavjit Singh, a Washington-born cartoonist who dons the costume of his public alter ego, ‘Sikh Captain America’, said he saw the mood of Trump’s America up close at the Republican National Convention. “It was clear to me I was not going to change any minds,” Singh told The Washington Post. “The feeling I left with was of a very passionate, vengeful voter base. That is a feeling I have not been able to shake off — and now we have this man as our next president,” Singh said.
Singh, who is in his mid-40s, began actively fighting bigotry after the 9/11 terror attacks. Today, he sometimes walks the streets in the star- spangled attire of Captain America, and some passersby are struck by the fact that the man in the iconic super-suit also sports a beard and a turban.
With President-elect Donald Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign targeting many minority groups, Singh said he is witnessing a shift in daily discourse. “I have seen and personally felt a rise in bigotry directed towards Sikhs, Muslims, Latinos since the beginning of Trump’s presidential campaign,” Singh said, noting that he is still processing “the gravity” of Trump’s win.
“We are seeing incidents being reported hours after this election, where those perceived as the ‘other’ are being targeted. This ‘other’ encompasses Muslims, LGBTQ, Sikhs, Latinos, blacks — essentially majority of people of colour,” he said. More than 200 incidents of hateful harassment and intimidation across the US have been reported since Trump won the presidential election, according to a group that tracks hate crimes in America.
Singh, who speaks at campuses across the nation, said Trump’s words have pulled back a national veil on such hate.
