ABSTRACT
There is a discourse globally about religious/racial hate crime that is focused predominantly on Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. This dominant discourse ignores how Islamophobia has affected other communities due to ‘mistaken identity’. A hate crime occurs when someone breaks the law by hurting another person because of prejudice against a group that they belong to. Thus, a hate crime is not normally caused by something someone says, but more because of a person’s identity, otherwise known as a ‘protected characteristic’. A hate crime can include verbal abuse, intimidation, threats, assault and bullying. It cannot be right that in 2018, 17 years on from Al Qaeda’s attacks on America, British Sikhs, such as award-winning artist Suman Kaur, are made to feel like marginalized victims because ‘the general response from government agencies and media is to increase awareness of support available to Muslims affected by hate.
