Comedian Jasmeet Singh knows when something's funny, and will be the first to poke fun at his own Sikh background. His YouTube videos, such as "Brown People Try White People Food" and "What If DJ Khaled Was Punjabi," have amassed almost 100 million views, and his channel has around 700,000 subscribers.
But what happened to him at a San Francisco airport on Sunday was not so funny.
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Singh was traveling after a performance at UC Berkeley when Transportation Security Administration agents stopped him at a security checkpoint in a San Francisco. What happened next, he documented in a series of tweets:
so the @tsa made me take off my turban in extra screening or they said I wouldn't be able to be let through to catch my flight
and naturally I'm like nah I really don't wanna do that since I got a flight to catch, but the manager intervenes and says I have to
And then it got worse:
so I get into the private screening and take it off and they body search me and put my turban through another X-ray machine because "safety"
after finding absolutely nothing wrong because a turban is just cloth and the whole thing is stupid I ask for a mirror to tie it back again
the agent tells me there are no mirrors and that I can just walk down the terminal to the nearest restroom without my turban on
it's just super annoying having to deal with this and also @tsa put mirrors in your room if you tell me to take it off it's not that hard
Singh still made light of his situation noting that while he knows people who ditch their turbans when traveling for exactly this reason, he chooses to wear it because he looks "swanky," and offered this photo as evidence:
bay area baby boy pic.twitter.com/GDbCNq2Qsa
But Singh reminded his followers why TSA asking a Sikh man to remove his turban is not akin to their asking a traveler to remove his shoes.
hey dude a shoe is not a turban. a hat is not a turban either. there's a far greater cultural significance behind it https://twitter.com/basicallybrentt/status/702022976754077697 ...
Indeed, the Sikh Coalition website explains the turban's significance in a way that those who follow any one faith (and hopefully, those who don't, too) should be able to grasp:
"The symbolisms of wearing a turban are many, from it being regarded as a symbol of sovereignty, dedication, self-respect, courage and piety, but the reason all practicing Sikhs wear the turban is just one — out of love and obedience to the wishes of the founders of their faith."
Are you really going to argue with that?
