What do you do when you see graffiti that symbolizes a too-common form of hate? If you’re Arsalan Iftikhar, you take a photo of it, and make it go viral.
When Arsalan Iftikhar saw the way a GAP ad featuring Sikh actor Waris Ahluwalia had been defaced, he knew he had to share it with the world.
This poster wasn’t defaced with your typical graffiti, but what was written is, unfortunately, some pretty typical anti-Muslim hatred.
The stunning ad campaign featuring two beautiful people and the caption “Make Love” had been altered to read, “Make Bombs” and “Please stop driving TAXIS”.
Iftikhar told The Huffington Post‘s Yasmine Hafiz, “When I first saw my Facebook friend’s photo of this GAP subway advertisement defaced by vandals with racist messages, I wanted the world to see how millions of brown people are viewed in America today.”
What happened next surprised everyone. Thanks to Iftikhar’s tweet, the poster went massively viral, and is receiving international attention from basically every major news outlet.
PHOTO: On this GAP subway ad featuring a Sikh man…Vandals have written “Make Bombs” & “Please stop driving taxis” pic.twitter.com/yvw2vhfexW
— Arsalan Iftikhar™ (@TheMuslimGuy) November 25, 2013
When The GAP got wind of this defacement, they responded by proudly turning their Twitter photo into the ad starring Ahluwalia.
POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA: Racists vandalize @GAP ad with Sikh model…GAP responds by changing Twitter pic to Sikh model pic.twitter.com/VsImrqbJat
— Arsalan Iftikhar™ (@TheMuslimGuy) November 25, 2013
When I saw that Iftikhar’s tweet and the story were going viral, I was grateful that people are giving this type of racism the attention it deserves. I also thought to myself, Hey! I know this guy! So I reached out to Arsalan, whose writing has appeared on The Good Men Project, and asked him a few questions about his tweet and the resulting attention.
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GMP: Your tweet about racist graffiti on a Gap ad that featured Sikh actor and jewelry designer Waris Ahluwalia has gone massively viral, and now you’re hearing from major media companies like CNN and The Daily Beast. What, if anything, does all this attention say to you about the state of race relations in America?
AI: Well, first of all, this whole issue with a Gap subway ad being vandalized with racist graffiti shows that the Internet can be used for good. It shows that if you have a compelling story, then everyday Americans will take interest and share that compelling story with their social media networks. Sadly, these anti-Sikh messages on a subway ad show that we still do not live in a post-racial America yet.
GMP: There are some racisms in this country that often feel invisible. One of them, no doubt, is bigotry toward people of Islamic faith, and that racism gets extrapolated out to others whom people assume are Muslim. So there comes a confusing reaction to events like the terrorist attacks at the Sikh temple, or this accusation toward a Sikh man of being a bomb builder, where we find ourselves saying, “But they’re not Muslim!”
What, in your mind, are the complicating factors of defending Sikh people by saying, “But, they’re not Muslim!” and what, if any, would be a better response?
AI: Sadly, many people who are Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian are often conflated as being one and the same by some people. The silver lining of this phenomenon is that their is a great deal of civil rights coalition work done between our communities since we are all in the same boat. The downside of any anti-Sikh sentiment is this knee-jerk reaction by some people to say “Hey, but they’re not Muslims!” (as if there was something wrong with being a Muslim). This latest episode just shows that we have a long way to go in terms of educating the American public about the diverse minority communities that live in America today.
GMP: What do you think would be the best possible outcomes to your tweet going viral? What conversations do you hope to spark?
AI: First of all, I hope that if anyone ever see racist graffiti anywhere, that will take a picture of it and share it on their social networks. It is important for us as Americans to point out the flaws in our society and I believe that by highlighting stories like this one, we can help to make our society just a little bit better for all people.
Big thanks to Arsalan Iftikhar for drawing attention to this issue, so that we can all be more aware of the types of racism that still thrive in America. We also need to join together to become a society that doesn’t tolerate hate. Even in small ways, standing up to intolerance matters. We need to work together, as a society, to turn racism and discrimination into a relic of the past.
Clearly the graffiti is ignorant and racist. Slam dunk, easy target. This article is an amazing political development, if you think about it. It’s liberal feminism defending a mass market advertising campaign by a multinational corporation against the ravages of graffiti, which is an art form of the urban underclass. It’s an elitist interpretation of guerrilla street art enlisted to defend a consumer corporate version of multiculturalism in the name of inclusion. Wow! We’re defending retail giants against guerrilla street artists now? Seems like The Man is gaining allies instead of enemies…. I am very glad to see people on… Read more »
Well, yeah. I mean, context matters. Is that a surprise?