I looked at my son and realized that I was raising a brown boy, keeping his hair long in accordance with his Sikh faith, in a country that was even more dangerous than the world that my grandfather lived in.

My family had been in the country for 100 years and I believed we were making linear progress. I had a small existential crisis - I thought, I’ve been a lawyer for 15 years - I thought with every campaign, we were making the country safer. My son was born at the end of 2015, and we began to see hate crimes skyrocket, reaching levels just as high as they were in 9/11. So I’ve worked with: Latino communities fighting immigration detention worked with black youth fighting stop and frisk on prison reform and solitary confinement marriage equality and trans rights. I began fighting hate crimes against Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, and other South Asian Americans, and soon realized that our issues were bound up with other communities of color. Since I was 20, for more than 16 years, I have gone from community to community working on a range of social justice issues. I became an activist after the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, who was a family friend. VK: I believe that revolutionary love is the call of our times. GPJ: A lot of activists are seen as angry, yet you have talked about loving your enemy. Here I am in conversation with Valarie Kaur, as she comments on loss, love, and the power of forgiveness. She is the author of the upcoming book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, releasing on June 16, 2020. Valarie Kaur is a mother, lawyer, and progressive activist who is grounded in her culture and religion, much like Gandhi and MLK. What would it look like to extend a fraction of that love, to ourselves, to others who don’t look like us, and even to our opponents?” “As many mothers know, love is sweet labor - a choice that we have to make over and over again, every single day. INALIENABLE: REFLECTIONS ON INDEPENDENCE & BELONGING.

Voices Column: Desi Roots, Global Wings.

Revolutionary love book kaur