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Friday 2 October 2009

Head case

If you can’t do your job because you’re wearing some unnecessary head gear, you expect to have to take it off, right?

Wrong!

A 31-year-old, turban-wearing Sikh cop, Gurmeal Singh, is now “in line for a payout from Greater Manchester Police”, says the Daily Mail.

There are some complexities in this story, and one suspects that both sides have perhaps not acted as well as they might, but this blog is, among other things, about religious privilege, and that’s what is happening here.

If someone else wanted to wear a huge jokey bandage around his head, just because he fancied it, he’d be told to take it off if it got in the way of his job. This turban did.

It’s bad enough that Sikhs get away with not having to wear crash helmets on motorbikes; now they can win compensation from their employers.

The solution is simple: if you feel you can’t do a job for religious reasons, don’t do the job. Do another job.

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