The Sikh Captain America Vishavjit Singh stars in a new documentary, Red, White, and Beard, to help educate the America about the Sikhs & cultural diversity.
Sikh Captain America was birthed following the 9/11 attacks by the cartoonist, Vishavjit Singh. He is a superhero that fights hate crime in a red, white, and blue spandex outfit topped with a bright blue turban. His cartoons can be found on Sikhtoons, a political cartoon website.
Captain America is Red, White, and Beard
When Singh decided to don his costume and walk the streets of New York, he was “nervous and apprehensive about how people would respond to [his] costume.” The reaction was stunning, with many asking questions and approaching him to take pictures together. He had been the target of strange looks his whole life, yet “in costume, I get looks, but I get looked at differently.”
“My trips as Captain America have taken me from NYC to LA to Kansas and upstate NY,” Singh said in an email to HuffPost. “It is almost as if me in character as the most patriotic fictional of American superheroes flicks a societal switch for people to at least embrace me as someone who is expressing his American-ness.” The inspiration for Singh’s donning the mantle of the Sikh Captain America was found after the mass shooting in 2012 at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that killed six worshipers. This, and other tragedies, have led him on “fascinating journeys.”
The documentary covers two and a half days during Sikh Captain America’s walkabouts in New York, and is produced by Ben Fischinger, Matthew Rogers and Ryan Westra. The film was only possible thanks to a grant from a nonprofit organization, Sikhlens which promotes Sikh culture. In the film, Sikh Captain America roams the streets of Manhattan, speaking with people as they pass. People asked questions about his appearance, though some offered less than tolerant views.
“It’s interesting how the superhero figure is respected even with a turban,” Rogers said. He added that the only discriminatory comment took place when Singh was in plain clothing, when someone called him Osama. “In the wake of 9/11 and the wars in the Middle East, there has been a clear rise of racism in our country, especially towards those who look like our dear friend Vish,” Westra said. “With Vish, we knew we had a story that was bizarre enough to gain interest, but important enough to make an impact.”