This is kind of amazing. Jezebel relayed this story about a guy who surreptitiously snapped a photo of a Sikh woman and posted it on Reddit under "FUNNY," expecting folks to join in with ridicule of her untrimmed facial hair -- an observance of her belief in the sacredness of the body, which means keeping it intact, hair and all. What happened next was unexpected: Reddit Users Attempt to Shame Sikh Woman, Get Righteously Schooled.The Reddit post eventually found its way to the woman in the photograph, Balpreet Kaur, who posted a polite, intelligent response -- not to justify her appearance to this Reddit asshole and his ilk, but simply to explain, enlighten and hopefully make the world a little less stupid.
But that's not the most awesome part. The original poster, "european_douchebag," then went ahead a posted this response apologizing to Sikhs, Balpreet and basically the entire Reddit community for "being the part of reddit that is intolerant and douchebaggy":
I know that this post ISN'T a funny post but I felt the need to apologize to the Sikhs, Balpreet, and anyone else I offended when I posted that picture. Put simply it was stupid. Making fun of people is funny to some but incredibly degrading to the people you're making fun of. It was an incredibly rude, judgmental, and ignorant thing to post.Holy smokes, what just happened? Actual tolerance and understanding transmitted through the internet? A rare moment, but I'll take it.
/r/Funny wasn't the proper place to post this. Maybe /r/racism or /r/douchebagsofreddit or /r/intolerance would have been more appropriate. Reddit shouldn't be about putting people down, but a group of people sending cool, interesting, or funny things. Reddit's been in the news alot lately about a lot of cool things we've done, like a freaking AMA by the president. I'm sorry for being the part of reddit that is intolerant and douchebaggy. This isn't 4chan, or 9gag, or some other stupid website where people post things like I did. It's fucking reddit. Where some pretty amazing stuff has happened.
I've read more about the Sikh faith and it was actually really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense to work on having a legacy and not worrying about what you look like. I made that post for stupid internet points and I was ignorant.
So reddit I'm sorry for being an asshole and for giving you negative publicity.
Balpreet, I'm sorry for being a closed minded individual. You are a much better person than I am
Sikhs, I'm sorry for insulting your culture and way of life.
Balpreet's faith in what she believes is astounding.