californiasardar1

It's "you're", not "your."

Do you have Cliff's Notes? I can't watch an hour long video. Thanks.

Bingo.

The same Sikhs who are proud of the "Sikh regiment" and the Sikh "shaheeds" of the World Wars.

Yes, but I don't see what the location of Guru Tegh Bahadur's birth has to do with this. Amritsar has taken on some sort of unintended meaning, in my opinion, because Sikhs are insecure and feel a need to mimic what people in other religions do. And, of course, people like visiting and taking photos in front of the "Golden Temple" (note that it was not intended to be gold-plated, but that is another matter). We are really selling Sikhi short of we insist on the notion of a "holy city." Waheguru is everywhere, Guru Granth Sahib maharaj can take prakah anywhere. Here's something to think about: Nankana Sahib has effectively been out of the control of the panth since 1947, and Sikhi survived. Do you know that Amritsar was EXTREMELY close to being awarded to Pakistan in 1947? You know what would have happened then? Sikhs would have been forced out of Amritsar (as they have been in the past), and Sikhi would have continued on with another place being viewed as the center of spiritual and temporal affairs. Maybe this thread would be about whether Anandpur Sahib should be given "holy city" (whatever that means) status.

I don't think any parcel of land is inherently important. Please go over the mool mantar again. Or think about the sakhi of Guru Nanak visiting Mecca. Of course having centers for spiritual and temporal matters is important for sustaining a community. But the specific locations are unimportant.

Yes.

If it is so special, please explain why it was unnecessary for Guru Gobind Singh to visit it, much less establish control over it.

I respectfully disagree with the notion of a "holy city." It is important to have (temporal and spiritual) centers for Sikhs to organize. But the location of the center itself is not important. Notice how Guru Gobind Singh never even crossed the Beas River in his lifetime.

Why does everyone fixate on Amritsar so much? Waheguru is everywhere. There is nothing special about Amritsar. This is just another illustration of Sikhs mimicking other religions. We need to have a "holy city" because we are no less than them!

Where is mistersingh? According to him, this sort of stuff only happens in the US.

Yes, obviously. There was an article about her that mentioned that "Humble" lived in her house, but their relationship was a platonic "brother/sister" one. It's pathetic. Instead of accepting that he was friendzoned and moving on, he decided to become her butler. Anyway, they are both trash.

There you go. This essentially confirms what I said: immigrant groups want something fun that will bring them together and also give them some sense of identity and make them reel like they belong somewhere. I am pretty sure that the popularity of bhangra trickled back to Punjab, and that's how it became popular among people there.

Serious question: why is your English so poor?

Aside from our people being (in general) stupid and pathetic, here is something to consider. I am not the most knowledeable person when it comes to bhangra. But based on what I know, bhangra's popularity among diaspora Punjabis predates its popularity among people in Punjab. As we all know, people in Punjab desperately want to be "western," and they copy the trends they see among Punjabis who live abroad. So the question then is: why did bhangra become popular among diaspora Punjabis? I think it has to do with the immigrant experience and a desire to have some sort of unifying cultural practices that are enjoyable and can help forge a sense of identity and belonging among minority people who spend most of their time feeling like they don't belong anywhere. Notice how bhangra is the first thing that comes up among most diaspora Punjabis when they seek to bond with each other, and it is the first thing that comes up when most diaspora Punjabis want to or need to provide some representation of their culture and heritage to non-Punjabi people. What is puzzling is why people choose bhangra, given that it was not actually part of their cultural heritage. But I bet most Punjabis are completely unaware of this. Moreover, music and dancing are perhaps the most popular cultural practices retained by most immigrant groups (who tend to easily lose less "fun" and "colorful" aspects of their culture). Punjabis just copy. I am not justifying the importance that diaspora Punjabis give to bhangra. I am just proposing a theory of how it became popular among them.

The silliest thing about the modern obsession with bhangra is how stupid punjabis present it as if it is some sort of ancient tradition that has formed a central (perhaps THE central) part of their culture for generations. In reality, only certain marginalized groups traditionally partook in dancing. I remember when I was a kid, I asked my grandfather if people danced at his wedding reception. I wish you all could have seen the look he gave me.

I came into this thread thinking the title was "detachment from monay" ...

People tend not to think for themselves these days, and to the extent that they do come up with their own opinions, they are based mostly on internet misinformation, propaganda and memes. The irony is that a lot of people will automatically adopt an opinion that is regarded as controversial or "contrarian" partly because they think it shows that they are independent thinkers. Most of the posters on sikhsangat, for example, get their news and opinions from right-wing garbage that they consume online. You can tell from the terminology that they use, the lies that they believe to be facts, and the issues that they think are of central importance in today's world. Why on earth was the opinion of someone like Tate given any weight by people who claim to believe in Sikhi? It is just one of many signs of our community's problems.

Just embrace the natural beauty of the beard.

Unfortunately, our community has been guilty of selling a revisionist history.

That guy is very embarrassing and clearly has mental health issues. He should not be berating anyone’s appearance with his hair out like that and with such an embarrassing gut.

There is more of a reaction when something affects Muslims because there are around 2 billion Muslims in the world.

I am pretty sure that the border agents responsible for the mistreatment thought that they were mistreating Muslims.

I am going to try one more time to help you understand: a man with $50 in his bank account is ten times richer than a man with $5 in his bank account. But the difference is essentially meaningless, because both of them are extremely poor.

I don't understand what point you think you are making. Resorting to insults doesn't help your case. It is also really lame for you to make this some sort of US Sikhs vs UK Sikhs thing. Does it make you feel better about yourself to engage in this kind of petty one-upmanship? You don't appear to grasp very basic realities related to population density. From your posts, you sound very provincial. It might be illuminating for you to occasionally leave Wolverhampton or Southall or wherever you live. More troubling than your provincialism is your inability to understand basic quantitative reasoning. I don't say these things to try to insult you, and it gives me no happiness to note these things. You seem like a really nice guy (although you try to hide it). People like you are the future of the Sikh quam. So in making these observations, I feel disappointed and depressed.