This article was published in onCampus, The Ohio State University Faculty Staff Newspaper, Vol. 38, Nov. 5 (Oct. 9, 2008), and features Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia, our host for the OSU screening of Divided We Fall in May 2008.For Tarunjit Butalia, the sound of silence is deafening. That’s why the soft drumbeat of BART — the University’s Bias Assessment and Response Team — is music to his ears.
Butalia, a research scientist in the College of Engineering, was doing what many Ohio State faculty and staff were doing last fall: Taking advantage of a free admission evening at COSI in downtown Columbus. He, his wife and three young children were enjoying the interactive exhibits when he was singled out for hurtful treatment by another COSI visitor.
“Osama bin Laden!” came a loud voice behind Butalia. “Osama!”
People turned to look. They saw a middle-aged, bearded man wearing a turban and the young man who had taunted him.
No one said a word. A few shook their heads in disbelief or embarrassment and went back to their tour. The young man moved on with his friends, and Butalia — wearing the turban of his Sikh faith — reported the incident to museum security. “Unfortunately,” said Butalia, “the security person did not take his name or get an ID number.” To add to the insult, Butalia said the same young man who had hurled the taunts came back later and took a picture of him with his cell phone.
If anyone noticed, no one spoke up. To Butalia’s way of thinking, the silence was just as hurtful, if not more so, than the young man’s name-calling.
“I think many folks heard it,” he said. “But they think, ‘If it’s not happening to me, why do I need to worry about it?’ I want people to understand that if one of us is threatened, all of us are threatened.”
At a university that boasts diversity of race, culture, religion and lifestyle, Butalia decided, surely there must be a mechanism for promoting understanding. He reasoned that although the incident did not occur on campus, it did occur at a campus-sponsored event.
He soon found that BART’s team of representatives was indeed interested in working with him to open a community discussion about cultural and religious freedom and tolerance.
BART’s mission is threefold: To monitor bias-related incidents within the Ohio State community; to provide assistance to victims and witnesses; and to serve as a general resource for those who wish to examine issues of bias and discrimination both on and off campus.
Rebecca Nelson, a co-convener of BART’s response team as assistant vice president for student life and director of the Multicultural Center, said, “Most of the time, we are reacting to individual situations.” Butalia’s endeavor, on the other hand, “is asking us to consider a very large climate issue. It is ‘squishy,’ hard to get your arms around. But a university like Ohio State is a place to start that discussion.”
To increase awareness, the university invited community members to a spring 2008 reception and screening of the acclaimed documentary film,
Divided We Fall, which focused on the Sikh community in the aftermath of 9/11.
Afterward, attendees participated in a purposeful dialogue about racism, religion and healing. As a result of this event, Nelson said, “There is now this conversation…how do we talk about faith, difference and commonality?”
The potential for such teaching moments abound on campus, Butalia said. While BART is not disciplinary in nature, “its softer approach means we are able to transform the atmosphere. It is a building up, an effort to change. The beauty of the BART process is that it brings closure to individuals who have been subjected to hurtful language.”
But what about the silence of the witnesses? “Over time,” Butalia said, “Each of us could learn to stand up for one another.”
