Check this article from the National Post:

Study suggests “turban effect” as a source of Islamophobia

Shannon Proudfoot, Canwest News Service Published: Sunday, June 29, 2008

A Muslim-style turban is perceived as a threat, according to a new study, even by people who don’t realize they hold the prejudice, dubbed “the turban effect” by researchers.

Research volunteers played a computer game that showed apartment balconies on which different figures appeared, some wearing Muslim-style turbans or hijabs and others bare-headed. They were told to shoot at the targets carrying guns and spare those who were unarmed, with points awarded accordingly.

People were much more likely to shoot Muslim-looking characters — men or women — even if they were carrying an innocent item instead of a weapon, the researchers found.

“Whether they’re holding a steel coffee mug or a gun, people are just more likely to shoot at someone who is wearing a turban,” says author Christian Unkelbach, a visiting scholar at Australia’s University of New South Wales. “Just putting on this piece of clothing changes people’s behaviour.”

Mr. Unkelbach largely blames one-sided media portrayals for the bias.

The results would almost certainly be the same if this study was conducted in Canada, says Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress.

“I’m hoping that Canadian Muslims one day become invisible,” says Mr. Elmasry. “As such, Canadians will treat them like any others.”

Islamophobia — “latent” before 9/11 — is on the rise, he says, but there is very little research on the issue in Canada.

The new study “does confirm our biggest fear that there is discrimination and prejudice within our society, and unfortunately people don’t recognize it or don’t admit it,” says Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal.

“Sometimes they really don’t know that it does exist.”

Beyond a turban or hijab, someone’s name, skin colour or a long beard may also identify them as a Muslim and make them a target of prejudice, he says. Mr. Elmenyawi wears a head-covering and long beard and says he struggles between recognizing that negative stereotypes exist and not becoming “paranoid” that he might fall prey to them.

In fact, the Australian study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, confirmed that people don’t even realize they hold these biased views. When the true intention of the experiment was revealed, Mr. Unkelbach says participants insisted they were not prejudiced and must have reacted differently from everyone else.

“The most common response was, ‘I’m sure I didn’t show that effect,’” he says.”They’re uncomfortable and I believe them — people are not doing this willingly. If they could, they would control that. Here, people are almost the victims of what they are fed by their environment.”

A quick sampling of news items related to Muslims and the Middle East confirmed this, he says, with a focus on violence and terrorism almost obliterating more balanced stories about the culture and people.

“If everything about Middle Easterners is associated with terrorism, people tend to form stereotypes in their head,” confirms Rima Wilkes, a sociology professor studying media at the University of British Columbia.

Even fictional media feed these biases, she says. One study showed that movies tend to feature “socially acceptable” villain stereotypes that have evolved over time, from evil Germans in the post-war years to vaguely Muslim bad guys more recently. Even swarthy, pixelated video game adversaries send the message that “ethnic others are bad,” Ms. Wilkes says.

Seeing as how a good number of Sikhs have felt the brunt of this turbanized islam-o-phobia it would be nice if they added ‘non’ muslim turbans to this study.

I came to know about the recent dera riots only the other day. I havn’t really been paying attention to any panthic news for the last little while, but usually when something big happens the news just finds its own way of travelling. Which made the news of the current riots that much more surprising since even fewer people knew about them, and when I did go to ask around, I found I wasn’t the only one in the dark about what was happening.

The underlying story is about the same, Ram Rahim was in Bombay, and a group of Sikhs showed up to protest. Someone in the babas entourage opened fire, prefixing Bhai Balkar Singh, with the honary title of Shaheed. This off course led to even more riots and more protests, and for the most part that’s where things have been since Friday it would seem.

I really got nothing to add to the story, and like most others in the dark, I’m just trying to piece together what’s what. All the same, as is customary when crisis like this happens the news is often slow to trickle out, especially from reliable sources.

Here are some vids I pulled off of youtube that highlight just some of the agitation that’s going on and check out Panthic.org for updates. Also while the blogsphere is pretty dead on the whole thing there is one blog in particular - http://gururamdass.blogspot.com/, which seems ahead of the curb on the happenings.

Anywyas here are some of the vids I scoured from youtube, and I noticed there are even a few others on facebook in addition to groups that seem to be filling up quick with updates, pics and other tid bits so if you’re on that check those out.

While realizing that there are way more important things going on in the world right now that deserve proper mention, thought and even acknowledgment, I couldn’t help but feel a little indulged when I found out that lil ol me was being quoted on a p2p news site for a snip I scratched out at lunch on a tech forum regarding Bells recent monopolization of DSL Internet in Canada. I wonder if this counts as being ‘published’?

With the playoffs done, and the Lakers out, looks like Shaq is going to add his 2 cents on what he thinks of Kobe’s performance. While I had the lakers winning the series in 6, I’m glad that Garnett was able to get himself a ring. Anyways Sarpanch Sahib this videos directed at you, and your man Kobe.

BTW Police ball tourny is this weekend so check that out, more details on that in the next minute..