Today’s episode sees me continuing to open up on things that have been left unspoken for several years.
When I was a child and would look at maps of the world, I was fascinated by the different countries and the different cultures and peoples of different backgrounds.
We are different people no matter where we are from, no better and no less, but different. Different, but equal.
I was born and raised in England, but my ancestors arrived here from Panjab, northern India. I was born into a beautiful faith called Sikhism. It was started at a time of great inequality in India, with oppressive and long-standing gender and caste systems at play.
Yet I grew up in an environment where, despite elders going to the Holy temple, and doing their daily Sikh prayers (which are beautiful, by the way), ~ and even housing the Holy Book, the Guru Grant Sahib Ji, in their homes ~ there was both explicit and implied sexism and racism I was exposed to through my childhood and into adulthood ~ as well as clear differences between how men and women, and boys and girls, were treated.
I could probably write a book on this, even a series of books, on what I witnessed and experienced. There were many moments where I had to bite my tongue and, over time, I became increasingly disillusioned with the disparity between the beautiful teachings from the Holy Book, teaching about Oneness and wholeness and humanity, and the lives these older stewards of the family were living out through their actions.
There was inter-family competition to a degree that wasn’t healthy. Coming from a place of compassion, this was a case of broken people (the elders) leading their families the best they could.
Switching to a more hopeful perspective…
Rapper Akala has helped me understand why these deep-seated beliefs have taken hold, and begin to make sense of why there are such shocking differences between how men and men are treated to this day ~ and why family members I was told to respect and trust are so shockingly racist with the views they held.
His book is called Natives, and I would highly recommend it as reading material for anyone who would like to understand where racism and classism comes from, and how we can undo some of the conditioning that’s taken hold to heal ourselves ~ and connect better with others from all walks of life, just as God intended.
I believe there is much beauty to be found I every religion and philosophy that there is… where we fall down is the application of these “rules”. I say this as a man myself… men have a lot to answer for!
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