My name is Brooke Salkoff and this Thanksgiving week, I reach out with gratitude for sharing your faith and your community with me. I joined SALDEF this summer after a 17-year career on television, most recently as national correspondent for NBC News. After covering Barack Obama’s inauguration, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other top national news of the day, I have found another vital story I need to tell. Yours.
As you and I know, too few Americans understand what it means to be Sikh, nor do they see or read or hear about the many positive and integral ways Sikh Americans contribute to American life. This needs to change if the United States is to live up to its promise as the “shining city on a hill.”
Your support has been critical to our important first step: conducting the first-ever national survey on public perception of Sikh Americans. Now we have the insights needed to transform mainstream understanding of Sikh Americans in a powerful and efficient way.
We are poised to tell your positive story pro-actively, via traditional and online media, to reach Americans where they live, work, play and learn. This effort will yield rewards beyond your community, when Sikhs are credited with sharing basic American values and reflecting American ideals.
You have my experience and commitment, and I am asking for yours. Join me. Let’s create a world of greater understanding, appreciation and respect, for the benefit of us all.
Kindly, Brooke Salkoff Communications Director
P.S. Learn more about SALDEF’s Media Initiative and our work in our Annual Report.