The Gift of Our Wounds by Arno Michaelis

Author:Arno Michaelis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Pardeep

When the first images of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center flashed on the TV screen, I feared we would have to reintroduce ourselves to the community. As American as we felt, people were sure to have questions because of the way we looked. I was working at Dad’s gas station, having graduated from Marquette but before I started training at the Milwaukee police academy. I was fortunate I could be at the station to help my parents with whatever situation arose after the attacks. Indian Sikhs were often mistaken for Middle Easterners because their skin was brown and they wore turbans. After 9/11, the comparison became dangerous. That’s when I learned that no matter how accepted we felt in our new culture, a single incident could spark tension and create division.

Four days after the towers fell, a Sikh gas station owner in Arizona was murdered in retaliation for the attacks because his killer thought he looked like a terrorist. We were warned about people who wanted to kill “towel heads.” Some of our customers were curious about our background and our beliefs, and I always took time to explain. It surprised me how little people knew about our religion, that it is the gentlest of all faiths and based on tenets of equality, brotherhood, and working for the well-being of all people. Sikhs are probably the last people on earth to resort to unjustified violence.

I think the reason our community supported us so roundly when so many others around the country were blindly rejected because of how they looked is because of Dad’s deep belief in the Sikh spirit of Seva, which means service to others without consideration of personal benefit. I remember after the attacks, gas stations around the city jacked up their prices, sometimes doubling the cost of a gallon of gas because the world financial market was in chaos and no one knew when their next delivery would be. We kept our price the same. If we ran out, so be it, Dad said, and I agreed. It was our community and our neighbors. We were all Americans and we all suffered that day. For years afterward, our customers thanked us for not taking advantage of that terrible tragedy for monetary gain.

Our Sikh scriptures say, “One who performs selfless service, without thought of reward, shall attain his Lord and Master. You shall find peace doing Seva.” My father was always doing something for someone, and he never expected anything in return. I think his example is what led me to pursue policing as a career. I really believed I could make a difference in people’s lives.

I was humbled and more than a little bit disappointed when, after college, I couldn’t get a job in law enforcement. Here I was with an education from one of the top universities, having majored in criminal justice and sociology, and I couldn’t get my foot in the door. I couldn’t even get a callback. I think a lot

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