3 lessons of revolutionary love in a time of rage | Valarie Kaur

190,790 views ・ 2018-03-05

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00:12
(Sikh Prayer) Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa,
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Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.
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There is a moment on the birthing table
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that feels like dying.
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The body in labor stretches to form an impossible circle.
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The contractions are less than a minute apart.
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Wave after wave, there is barely time to breathe.
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The medical term:
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"transition,"
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because "feels like dying" is not scientific enough.
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(Laughter)
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I checked.
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During my transition,
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my husband was pressing down on my sacrum
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to keep my body from breaking.
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My father was waiting behind the hospital curtain ...
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more like hiding.
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But my mother was at my side.
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The midwife said she could see the baby's head,
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but all I could feel was a ring of fire.
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I turned to my mother and said, "I can't,"
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but she was already pouring my grandfather's prayer in my ear.
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(Sikh Prayer) "Tati Vao Na Lagi, Par Brahm Sarnai."
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"The hot winds cannot touch you."
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"You are brave," she said.
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"You are brave."
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And suddenly I saw my grandmother standing behind my mother.
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And her mother behind her.
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And her mother behind her.
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A long line of women who had pushed through the fire before me.
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I took a breath;
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I pushed;
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my son was born.
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As I held him in my arms, shaking and sobbing
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from the rush of oxytocin that flooded my body,
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my mother was already preparing to feed me.
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Nursing her baby as I nursed mine.
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My mother had never stopped laboring for me,
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from my birth to my son's birth.
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She already knew what I was just beginning to name.
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That love is more than a rush of feeling
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that happens to us if we're lucky.
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Love is sweet labor.
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Fierce.
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Bloody.
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Imperfect.
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Life-giving.
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A choice we make over and over again.
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I am an American civil rights activist
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who has labored with communities of color since September 11,
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fighting unjust policies by the state and acts of hate in the street.
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And in our most painful moments,
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in the face of the fires of injustice,
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I have seen labors of love deliver us.
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My life on the frontlines of fighting hate in America has been a study
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in what I've come to call revolutionary love.
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Revolutionary love is the choice to enter into labor
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for others who do not look like us,
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for our opponents who hurt us
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and for ourselves.
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In this era of enormous rage,
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when the fires are burning all around us,
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I believe that revolutionary love is the call of our times.
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Now, if you cringe when people say, "Love is the answer ..."
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I do, too.
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(Laughter)
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I am a lawyer.
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(Laughter)
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So let me show you how I came to see love as a force for social justice
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through three lessons.
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My first encounter with hate was in the schoolyard.
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I was a little girl growing up in California,
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where my family has lived and farmed for a century.
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When I was told that I would go to hell because I was not Christian,
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called a "black dog" because I was not white,
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I ran to my grandfather's arms.
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Papa Ji dried my tears --
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gave me the words of Guru Nanak,
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the founder of the Sikh faith.
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"I see no stranger," said Nanak.
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"I see no enemy."
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My grandfather taught me
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that I could choose to see all the faces I meet
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and wonder about them.
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And if I wonder about them,
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then I will listen to their stories even when it's hard.
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I will refuse to hate them even when they hate me.
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I will even vow to protect them when they are in harm's way.
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That's what it means to be a Sikh:
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S-i-k-h.
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To walk the path of a warrior saint.
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He told me the story of the first Sikh woman warrior,
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Mai Bhago.
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The story goes there were 40 soldiers who abandoned their post
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during a great battle against an empire.
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They returned to a village,
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and this village woman turned to them and said,
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"You will not abandon the fight.
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You will return to the fire,
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and I will lead you."
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She mounted a horse.
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She donned a turban.
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And with sword in her hand and fire in her eyes,
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she led them where no one else would.
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She became the one she was waiting for.
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"Don't abandon your posts, my dear."
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My grandfather saw me as a warrior.
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I was a little girl in two long braids,
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but I promised.
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Fast-forward, I'm 20 years old,
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watching the Twin Towers fall,
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the horror stuck in my throat,
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and then a face flashes on the screen:
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a brown man with a turban and beard,
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and I realize that our nation's new enemy looks like my grandfather.
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And these turbans meant to represent our commitment to serve
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cast us as terrorists.
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And Sikhs became targets of hate,
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alongside our Muslim brothers and sisters.
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The first person killed in a hate crime after September 11 was a Sikh man,
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standing in front of his gas station in Arizona.
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Balbir Singh Sodhi was a family friend I called "uncle,"
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murdered by a man who called himself "patriot."
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He is the first of many to have been killed,
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but his story --
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our stories barely made the evening news.
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I didn't know what to do,
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but I had a camera,
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I faced the fire.
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I went to his widow,
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Joginder Kaur.
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I wept with her, and I asked her,
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"What would you like to tell the people of America?"
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I was expecting blame.
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But she looked at me and said,
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"Tell them, 'Thank you.'
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3,000 Americans came to my husband's memorial.
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They did not know me,
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but they wept with me.
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Tell them, 'Thank you.'"
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Thousands of people showed up,
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because unlike national news,
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the local media told Balbir Uncle's story.
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Stories can create the wonder
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that turns strangers into sisters and brothers.
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This was my first lesson in revolutionary love --
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that stories can help us see no stranger.
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And so ...
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my camera became my sword.
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My law degree became my shield.
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My film partner became my husband.
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(Laughter)
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I didn't expect that.
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And we became part of a generation of advocates
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working with communities facing their own fires.
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I worked inside of supermax prisons,
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on the shores of Guantanamo,
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at the sites of mass shootings
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when the blood was still fresh on the ground.
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And every time,
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for 15 years,
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with every film, with every lawsuit,
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with every campaign,
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I thought we were making the nation safer
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for the next generation.
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And then my son was born.
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In a time ...
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when hate crimes against our communities
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are at the highest they have been since 9/11.
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When right-wing nationalist movements are on the rise around the globe
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and have captured the presidency of the United States.
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When white supremacists march in our streets,
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torches high, hoods off.
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And I have to reckon with the fact
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that my son is growing up in a country more dangerous for him
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than the one I was given.
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And there will be moments
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when I cannot protect him
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when he is seen as a terrorist ...
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just as black people in America
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are still seen as criminal.
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Brown people, illegal.
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Queer and trans people, immoral.
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Indigenous people, savage.
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Women and girls as property.
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And when they fail to see our bodies as some mother's child,
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it becomes easier to ban us,
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detain us,
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deport us,
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imprison us,
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sacrifice us for the illusion of security.
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(Applause)
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I wanted to abandon my post.
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But I made a promise,
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so I returned to the gas station
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where Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed 15 years to the day.
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I set down a candle in the spot where he bled to death.
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His brother, Rana, turned to me
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and said, "Nothing has changed."
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And I asked,
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"Who have we not yet tried to love?"
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We decided to call the murderer in prison.
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The phone rings.
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My heart is beating in my ears.
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I hear the voice of Frank Roque,
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a man who once said ...
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"I'm going to go out and shoot some towel heads.
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We should kill their children, too."
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And every emotional impulse in me says, "I can't."
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It becomes an act of will to wonder.
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"Why?" I ask.
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"Why did you agree to speak with us?"
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Frank says, "I'm sorry for what happened,
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but I'm also sorry for all the people killed on 9/11."
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He fails to take responsibility.
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I become angry to protect Rana,
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but Rana is still wondering about Frank --
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listening --
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responds.
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"Frank, this is the first time I'm hearing you say
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that you feel sorry."
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And Frank --
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Frank says, "Yes.
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I am sorry for what I did to your brother.
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One day when I go to heaven to be judged by God,
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I will ask to see your brother.
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And I will hug him.
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And I will ask him for forgiveness."
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And Rana says ...
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"We already forgave you."
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Forgiveness is not forgetting.
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Forgiveness is freedom from hate.
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Because when we are free from hate,
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we see the ones who hurt us not as monsters,
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but as people who themselves are wounded,
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who themselves feel threatened,
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who don't know what else to do with their insecurity
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but to hurt us, to pull the trigger,
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or cast the vote,
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or pass the policy aimed at us.
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But if some of us begin to wonder about them,
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listen even to their stories,
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we learn that participation in oppression comes at a cost.
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It cuts them off from their own capacity to love.
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This was my second lesson in revolutionary love.
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We love our opponents when we tend the wound in them.
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Tending to the wound is not healing them --
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only they can do that.
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Just tending to it allows us
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to see our opponents:
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the terrorist, the fanatic, the demagogue.
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They've been radicalized by cultures and policies that we together can change.
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I looked back on all of our campaigns,
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and I realized that any time we fought bad actors,
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we didn't change very much.
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But when we chose to wield our swords and shields
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to battle bad systems,
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that's when we saw change.
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I have worked on campaigns
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that released hundreds of people out of solitary confinement,
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reformed a corrupt police department,
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changed federal hate crimes policy.
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The choice to love our opponents is moral and pragmatic,
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and it opens up the previously unimaginable possibility
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of reconciliation.
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But remember ...
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it took 15 years to make that phone call.
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I had to tend to my own rage and grief first.
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Loving our opponents requires us to love ourselves.
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Gandhi, King, Mandela --
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they taught a lot about how to love others and opponents.
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They didn't talk a lot about loving ourselves.
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This is a feminist intervention.
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(Applause)
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Yes.
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Yes.
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(Applause)
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Because for too long have women and women of color been told
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to suppress their rage,
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suppress their grief in the name of love and forgiveness.
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But when we suppress our rage,
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that's when it hardens into hate directed outward,
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but usually directed inward.
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But mothering has taught me that all of our emotions are necessary.
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Joy is the gift of love.
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Grief is the price of love.
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Anger is the force that protects it.
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This was my third lesson in revolutionary love.
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We love ourselves
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when we breathe through the fire of pain
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and refuse to let it harden into hate.
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That's why I believe
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that love must be practiced in all three directions
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to be revolutionary.
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Loving just ourselves feels good,
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but it's narcissism.
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(Laughter)
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Loving only our opponents is self-loathing.
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Loving only others is ineffective.
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This is where a lot of our movements live right now.
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We need to practice all three forms of love.
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And so, how do we practice it?
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Ready?
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Number one ...
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in order to love others,
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see no stranger.
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We can train our eyes to look upon strangers on the street,
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on the subway, on the screen,
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and say in our minds,
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"Brother,
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sister,
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aunt,
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uncle."
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And when we say this, what we are saying is,
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"You are a part of me I do not yet know.
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I choose to wonder about you.
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I will listen for your stories
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and pick up a sword when you are in harm's way."
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And so, number two:
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in order to love our opponents,
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tend the wound.
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Can you see the wound in the ones who hurt you?
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Can you wonder even about them?
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And if this question sends panic through your body,
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then your most revolutionary act
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is to wonder, listen and respond to your own needs.
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Number three:
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in order to love ourselves,
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breathe and push.
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When we are pushing into the fires in our bodies
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or the fires in the world,
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we need to be breathing together
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in order to be pushing together.
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How are you breathing each day?
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Who are you breathing with?
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Because ...
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when executive orders and news of violence hits our bodies hard,
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sometimes less than a minute apart,
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it feels like dying.
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In those moments,
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my son places his hand on my cheek and says,
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"Dance time, mommy?"
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And we dance.
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In the darkness, we breathe and we dance.
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Our family becomes a pocket of revolutionary love.
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Our joy is an act of moral resistance.
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How are you protecting your joy each day?
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Because in joy we see even darkness with new eyes.
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And so the mother in me asks,
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what if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb,
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but the darkness of the womb?
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What if our future is not dead,
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but still waiting to be born?
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What if this is our great transition?
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Remember the wisdom of the midwife.
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"Breathe," she says.
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And then --
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"push."
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Because if we don't push, we will die.
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If we don't breathe, we will die.
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Revolutionary love requires us to breathe and push through the fire
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with a warrior's heart and a saint's eyes
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so that one day ...
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one day you will see my son as your own
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and protect him when I am not there.
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You will tend to the wound in the ones who want to hurt him.
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You will teach him how to love himself
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because you love yourself.
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You will whisper in his ear,
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as I whisper in yours,
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"You are brave."
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You are brave.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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(Sikh Prayer) Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa,
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Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.
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(Applause)
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(Cheering)
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(Applause)
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About this website

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