White Supremacists in Trump's America attack Sikh GOP leader

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Surjit Malhi always imagined that violence against American Sikhs was something that happened to other people. Yes, he wears a turban, a long unshorn beard and bright clothing, which mark him out as different from the European American majority in Turlock, the farm town 90 miles east of San Francisco where he has made his home since 1992. Yes, he’s aware that random attacks against Sikhs and other south Asian Americans are on the rise.

In his mind, though, he is also a pillar of the community, a staunch Republican who counts the area’s elected officials among his friends and can be sure, in an emergency, that the district attorney, or the Turlock mayor, will answer his call.

Malhi is a man loved and admired for his fundraising efforts on behalf of the families of fallen police officers, his appearances at community festivals and the convoys he’s organized through his trucking company to help the victims of California’s wildfires and last year’s devastating floods in Houston.

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We are five times more likely today to be targets of hate than before 9/11
Valarie Kaur, activist
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None of that helped, though, when, at the end of July, two white supremacists jumped him and showered him with baton blows as he was out erecting lawn signs and banners in support of Jeff Denham, the local Republican congressman locked in a tight re-election fight in November’s mid-terms.

“I felt sand being thrown in my eyes,” Malhi recounted from his office, which is decorated with a five-panel photograph of the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar and several shots of himself with congressman Denham at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.

Next thing he knew, he was being pummeled by wooden sticks on his head and back. His assailants were wearing hoodies, but he could see their blue eyes and white skin from between his fingers, which he’d raised to protect his face.

“They were cursing and shouting ‘go back to your country,’” he said. They spray-painted a similar message on his truck along with a Celtic cross, a white supremacist symbol, before taking off...

Not surprised by this. A large number of Americans, especially Bible Belters, think anything that isn't mainstream Christianity is Islam, even other branches of Christianity.

I didn't know that the Celtic cross was being used as a white supremacist symbol. Most white supremacists identity as Christian despite perverting Jesus's teachings and have no clue about Celtic culture. If they knew anything about it, they would see that they are using the wrong symbol.