Few people would dress up as Captain America and
go to a public park, especially when it isn’t Halloween.
You’d get plenty of stares, perhaps even a taunt or two.
And if you happen to be a skinny brown man wearing
a beard and a turban, you’re bound to raise not only
eyebrows, but also the ire of a few folks—those who
take offense to Captain America being anything but a
brawny white man.
So it took some courage for Sikh cartoonist Vishavjit Singh to visit New York City’s Central Park dressed in
the blue-red-and-white costume of the Marvel Comics
superhero, carrying a shield and displaying a large “A”
on his blue turban. He did it during the recent Puerto Rican Day Parade, with photographer Fiona Aboud
alongside to capture shots for her “Sikhs: An American
Portrait” project.
As he writes at Salon.com, he undertook the experiment to “challenge the way New Yorkers think about
superheroes—and
bearded
Sikhs like
me.” As expected, he got plenty of attention. But aside from a few
gibes—one man shouted “Captain A-rab,” while another
yelled, “Terrorista!”—the reaction was mostly positive.
“It was the most unlikeliest of days for me,” he
writes. “Hundreds of strangers came up to me. And we
were able to lay to rest any anxieties or inhibitions in
those moments—about other people, about the unknown, about ourselves, about violating other people’s
personal spaces or not understanding their beliefs.”
Photographs of him as Captain America can be
viewed and purchased at http://www.redbubble.com/
people/sikhcaptain