Guest Commentary by Alex Sangha

I can’t believe the racist overtones of the reader comments posted on Xtra Vancouver online regarding the latest gay bashings attributed to South Asians.
The message is that white people are responsible for gay rights and have built this country and brown immigrants are destroying Canadian culture and making the streets unsafe for gays.
First, South Asians are no more likely to commit homophobic attacks than any other cultural, racial, or religious group.
I agree with the expert cited in the front page Province article regarding this issue that homophobia and gay bashings may have more to do with masculinity and a phenomenon of young males in groups. I would agree that Sikhs in particular have a macho culture but so do Latinos and people from the Middle East. Men in general all over the world are encouraged to be masculine, courageous, and brave.
Also the unscientific statistics cited by Xtra are not significant or marginally significant. They found that 38% of South Asians were suspects in gay bashings in Metro Vancouver while the local South Asian population is only 26%.
Xtra needs to take into account the margin of error, the bias and racism in the criminal justice system, and Xtra should have also conducted a survey province wide and not just Metro Vancouver.
I am sure there are a lot of attacks against gay people in the rural heartlands and these attacks are not most likely to be from South Asians because of population distribution and demographics.
As far as I am concerned the criminal justice system unfairly targets minorities, persons with mental illness, Aboriginal people, and anyone marginalized like the homeless and persons with drug addiction. Most of these groups are overrepresented in the criminal justice system.
I wonder how many homophobic attacks by Caucasians were not brought to trial or considered hate crimes? The criminal justice system is not colour blind as far as I am concerned.
Second, we are all immigrants to Canada with the exception of the First Nations people. All immigrants have helped built Canada to what it is today. I recognize the early settlers were of British and French origin and helped establish the institutional foundation of Canada but our nation has become diverse culturally. South Asians have been in Canada for over a century. When will they not be considered immigrants anymore?
Third, homophobia is not a universal cultural trait among all South Asians. In fact, it was the British colonial rulers who imposed anti-gay laws in India within the penal code.
 Finally, after over a century of oppression and discrimination in India with these laws, the Indian people and the Indian lawmakers themselves made homosexuality legal in New Delhi. Even the largely muslim country of Pakistan extended rights to transgender people and the country of Nepal in South Asia supported same sex marriage to my knowledge.
There is a sexual revolution of sorts happening in South Asia and among South Asians.
In Vancouver there are four queer groups that support South Asians. What other minority community offers this much cultural support to their gay and lesbian population?
Sher Vancouver (LGBT South Asians and friends) is even hosting their popular queer Bollywood dance during Pride Week and last year a reporter from the Province newspaper selected the Sher Vancouver Pride of Bollywood float in the pride parade as the best float of the day.
Recently, I was at Surrey Pride and there was a wonderful South Asian traditional dance as part of the performances.
So its about time the people heard some positive stories about queer South Asians instead of stories which just compound the amount of oppression, discrimination, hatred, and racism that South Asian queers and other minorities already experience.

Alex Sangha is the founder and former moderator of Sher Vancouver