No offense but we all are experts at giving advice but the real test is when you yourself are going thru that situation.  I bet if you were denied a job for being brown and was told straight up or saw a video of it ...all u diplomats will prolly write essays about freedom of right ..and how it is so unfair etc etc here ..

VERY relevant movie Ocean of Pearls

Quote from: G. Sidhu on October 20, 2011, 10:57:45 AM

No offense but we all are experts at giving advice but the real test is when you yourself are going thru that situation.  I bet if you were denied a job for being brown and was told straight up or saw a video of it ...all u diplomats will prolly write essays about freedom of right ..and how it is so unfair etc etc here ..

Yes, that's true. But there's a difference between the skin your born with, and the decisions you make to celebrate/outwardly show your religion. One is not the same as the other. If I was told I couldn't get a job because I was brown, I would obviously get the police called on me for disturbing the peace. But, and to also answer Harman's question, if we're talking about removing a pughadi, I would have to think about what that means to me, and the consequence if I didn't want to remove it. Would I jeopardize earning money/establishing a life for myself? Would I jeopardize the survival of people who depended on me?

Harman, I'm not saying it would be logical for him to remove the pagh. I am saying where do you decide for yourself that you're not any less of a Hindu/Sikh/Muslim if you do remove religious garb in order to get a job. I didn't want to venture down that slippery slope of defending your religious practice/explaining it, and I don't want to set up a scenario where people may interpret what I am saying as racist in itself. But I'm thinking, there is a clear dichotomy of thought: Go to the grave protecting what you believe in, or, Change for the sake of obtaining something you need.


It's not egocentric to think that you have a purpose in this life, so by changing how you are viewed in order to do what you need to, I don't think it's selfish; I think that's aligning yourself with purpose.

I'm surprised to see people actually insinuate that the hypothetical sardar in the video actually remove his pagg for work. There's nothing wrong with holding a racist belief. As a matter of fact, it is your right. What he did was against the law. The freedom of religion is a protected class under the constitution.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/religion.cfm

"Unless it would be an undue hardship on the employer's operation of its business, an employer must reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices."

What is undue hardship? "Undue hardship means significant difficulty or expense and focuses on the resources and circumstances of the particular employer in relationship to the cost or difficulty of providing a specific accommodation.  Undue hardship refers not only to financial difficulty, but to reasonable accommodations that are unduly extensive, substantial, or disruptive, or those that would fundamentally alter the nature or operation of the business."
In the scenario of this video, how does a pagg produce undue hardship on the business?

But above all, what constitutes religion? Because we all know there are religions out there that require you to be nude in public.

"To determine whether an action of the federal or state government infringes upon a person's right to freedom of religion, the court must decide what qualifies as religion or religious activities for purposes of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has interpreted religion to mean a sincere and meaningful belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to the place held by God in the lives of other persons."

"United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 64 S. Ct. 882, 88 L. Ed. 1148 (1944) The Ballard case involved the conviction of organizers of the I Am movement on grounds that they defrauded people by falsely representing that their members had supernatural powers to heal people with incurable illnesses.The Supreme Court held that the jury, in determining the line between the free exercise of religion and the punishable offense"
Following the case law, the jury will determine whether the religion of nude, tattoos, etc are valid or not.

Quote from: G. Sidhu on October 20, 2011, 10:57:45 AM

No offense but we all are experts at giving advice but the real test is when you yourself are going thru that situation.  I bet if you were denied a job for being brown and was told straight up or saw a video of it ...all u diplomats will prolly write essays about freedom of right ..and how it is so unfair etc etc here ..

Yes, that's true. But there's a difference between the skin your born with, and the decisions you make to celebrate/outwardly show your religion. One is not the same as the other. If I was told I couldn't get a job because I was brown, I would obviously get the police called on me for disturbing the peace. But, and to also answer Harman's question, if we're talking about removing a pughadi, I would have to think about what that means to me, and the consequence if I didn't want to remove it. Would I jeopardize earning money/establishing a life for myself? Would I jeopardize the survival of people who depended on me?

Harman, I'm not saying it would be logical for him to remove the pagh. I am saying where do you decide for yourself that you're not any less of a Hindu/Sikh/Muslim if you do remove religious garb in order to get a job. I didn't want to venture down that slippery slope of defending your religious practice/explaining it, and I don't want to set up a scenario where people may interpret what I am saying as racist in itself. But I'm thinking, there is a clear dichotomy of thought: Go to the grave protecting what you believe in, or, Change for the sake of obtaining something you need.


It's not egocentric to think that you have a purpose in this life, so by changing how you are viewed in order to do what you need to, I don't think it's selfish; I think that's aligning yourself with purpose.