A lawsuit has been filed in California suing US comedian Jay Leno for what it calls "racist" comments on the Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple of Amritsar.Why on earth are Sikhs so up in arms about this? I have no use for Leno as a comedian, but I'm at a loss to see how his joke was racist. The joke's target was Romney, or at least, his great wealth. Nothing I've read suggests that Leno mentioned Sikhs or identified the image as the Golden Temple.
The charge of racism concerning what to most of us was a middling joke is disturbingly reminiscent of the extreme touchiness exhibited by some Muslims, and as I argued with reference to those hypersensitive Muslims, there is a point beyond which catering to a religious group's sensitivity about what is sacred is actively harmful to a truly pluralistic, peaceful and denominationally neutral polity.
This lawsuit seems irrational and looks like an abuse of the legal system. And this remark comes from somebody who acknowledges the appalling resurgence of bigotry as a socially acceptable attitude in the U.S. If Sikhs far and wide agree that Leno was racist, they have a lot of work to do to explain why to the rest of us.
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