Sundeep Morrison in 'Rag Head'
Sundeep Morrison in 'Rag Head'
The white supremacist who killed six people at Oak Creek’s Sikh temple on Aug. 5, 2012, was acting out of a raging ideology of hate. Back then, he was considered a fringe case. Now, many of the same ideas are proudly embraced by some Republican politicians, including an especially noxious Congresswoman from Georgia who stokes her audience’s fears of being somehow “replaced” by ethnic minorities.
The Sikh temple shooting was a forewarning of things to come.
Sundeep Morrison in 'Rag Head'
Sundeep Morrison in 'Rag Head'
On the day it happened, playwright Sundeep Morrison was in Los Angeles, but her parents were present at another of Wisconsin’s three Sikh temples. “They were not at that temple that particular Sunday, but they easily could have been,” she says.
Morrison’s play based on the shooting, Rag Head, will be staged at New York City’s United Solo Theatre Festival on Friday, Oct. 28. She wrote it a little over a year after the tragedy “as a writing exercise to process my emotions and feelings over everything that happened, and over how easily it could have happened to my parents in the temple they were sitting in and struggling with the feeling of ‘Are my parents safe?’ because it happened so close to them,” she explains. “And just the fear and anxiety that event created within all of us wondering how safe our parents are in one of our most sacred places. And that was the question: If we aren’t safe in gurdwara, our place of worship, where are we safe?”
Rag Head debuted in LA. Morrison says she has faced problems getting the play produced. “As a QPAC, to put any narrative out has been a challenge, but especially this narrative because it explores white supremacy, faith identity,” and the immigrant experience in America,” she explains. “It’s hard to get any story off the ground, but especially this story, but once people read the script it resonates. But it’s hard to get them to read it. Also, this is a grassroots production. There’s no big production house or entity behind it. It's myself as a performer and a small team.”
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Sundeep Morrison in 'Rag Head'
Sundeep Morrison in 'Rag Head'
Morrison’s play directly addresses the idiocy of conspiracy theories that have become mainstream in American society since the Sikh temple shooting. One of Rag Head’s characters says, “Have you ever wondered why these Arabs drive all the cabs, own almost all the gas stations and hotels from here to Fort Worth? Obama. I think it’s a secret government program where they bring them in to control the fuel and lodging so that they can bring the Taliban here.”
Yes, there people who think that way. Has America moved forward or backward since the 2015 hate crime at the Sikh temple? “I think in the last few years with our socio-political climate, racism has gotten a lot worse,” she says. “It’s felt more emboldened. What they said behind our backs was all of a sudden at our doorstep. I have hope, but we went through four really scary years because political rhetoric incites violence and that’s what we witnessed. There was an increase in hate crimes against all immigrant communities.
What does Morrison want her audience to take away from Rag Head? “If I can make them feel something, then hopefully I can make them think differently about groups they may know little about, especially about immigrant groups. And also, to get people to reflect on how white supremacy in all its forms affects all of us, whether its soft racism we let pass or the overt white supremacy we experience.”
