Source: Outlook India

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20011105&fname=Column+Shankar+%28F%29&sid=1

The November 5, 2001 edition of Outlook India magazine included the editorial "Those Desi New York Blues," with one South Asian American woman's perspective on the aftermath of September 11. S. Shankar wrote that while hate crimes have been "widely reported...the fabric of everyday life is also being rent in smaller ways. A friend who is originally from Bangladesh accompanies her teenage daughter to and from her Muslim religious school daily because of fears of racist attacks...Hindu women are being exhorted to wear prominent bindis on their foreheads to announce the fact that they are not Muslim. There is an especial irony in this exhortation, for not too long ago wearing a bindi could make you the victim of a racist attack. In the late '80s, racists in Northern New Jersey, calling themselves Dotbusters, targeted bindi-wearing women and other South Asians."