As a Sikh American, I want a president who won't help hate

Why I'm Endorsing Kamala Harris

This essay was originally published in my column for Religion News Service.

I’m a Sikh American, born and raised in the United States by immigrant parents. I think about the life my parents dreamed of when they moved to this country. I feel genuine gratitude for all the ways that America has come true for all of us, what it made possible — and still promises to, in the life I want for my kids. There’s so much here to celebrate.

It’s this that compels me to align with the Democratic ticket and vote for Kamala Harris to be the next president of the United States. Not that she will deliver a perfect America — I don’t think she’s perfect. I don’t agree with everything she’s said or done. But her repeated support for the American values of liberty, tolerance and justice for all points to an America vastly preferable to what we’re being offered if she were to lose.

I saw a graphic example of all of this recently when I went to Ohio to meet and speak with university students. While there, I met up with Ricky Singh, a Sikh friend from Springfield, the town made famous by Donald Trump’s insistent but false accusations that its Haitian immigrants were eating local pets.

I asked Ricky about the impact of Trump’s comments on the community. He told me a story of an encounter he’d just had. He was walking down a sidewalk and witnessed a white man in a car shouting aggressively out his window at a Black man. Ricky heard the driver spewing hate, repeatedly calling the man a Haitian immigrant and telling him to go back.

Despite the clear tension, and perhaps because of it, Ricky decided to help out. He stepped toward the car and, trying to defuse the situation, said to the harasser: “Hey, we don’t speak like that in America.”

We do, of course: As members of a religious minority that has all too often been subjected to hateful rhetoric, exclusion and outright violence, Ricky and I are both familiar with such talk and with where such statements can lead. I know they are not “just words,” and they are certainly no joke. They have real consequences in the lives of real people.

It was no surprise to Ricky when the man then turned his vitriol on him, saying, “You better go back to where you came from, too.”

Ricky’s story has stuck with me because it’s a vivid reminder of where this nation might be heading if the politician who purveys hateful lies is rewarded with a return to the Oval Office.

Many of Trump’s supporters simply wave off his long track record of statements mocking or demeaning women, the disabled, Mexicans, people of color generally and anyone who dares to exercise their right to disagree with him. These devotees tend to underplay his contempt for the electoral system and the peaceful transition of power. It’s all an act, they say. It’s all about “owning the libs,” they say. You need to take Trump “seriously but not literally,” they say.

But even if we don’t live in a perfect country, I want to choose an America where politicians don’t garner support by turning people against one another; or by singling out marginalized communities for scorn; or by acting as if the guardrails that protect our democracy don’t matter. 

It’s a vision that happens to line up much more closely with what most Americans actually want on other issues — on everything from environmental policy to reproductive freedom to ensuring that billionaires pay a fairer share of taxes. On so many fundamental issues, Kamala Harris represents and advocates for a better and more inclusive America for the 21^st century, and not for a return to nativism, a politics of exclusion and perpetual strife. 

This doesn’t seem like so much to ask. It’s hard to imagine anyone wants their political leaders operating in this way. Yet here we are, neck and neck in a historic election where the stakes are about as fundamental as it gets: Are we going to go down a path of dishonesty and demagoguery, or do we want to live up to the best of who we are as a country? 

As I see it, a vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for a freer, better and more just future for us all. It’s a vision for how we make this country more equal and more just, even if we can’t make it perfect.