“Forgiveness is freedom from hate.” Once we are free from hate, we can work together to change the policies and cultures that drive our opponents to hurt us.

“Forgiveness is not forgetting,” Valarie says. So, Valarie and the Sodhi family reached out to her uncle’s killer in prison, and they forgave him. Starting with that little boy in her schoolyard, Valarie has learned that there is no such thing as monsters in this world, only human beings who are wounded-people who hurt us out of their insecurity or blindness or greed or suffering. “We are called to see one another as brothers and sisters and siblings-even those who hurt us.” “Love calls us to stand up and protect anyone who is in harm’s way-Black people, brown people, Indigenous people, LGBTQ people, disabled people, women and girls, poor people, immigrants, and refugees,” says Valarie. She calls people to love each other and themselves through what she calls “ Revolutionary Love.” It’s love that stands up to protect everyone, especially those who are most at risk. Today Valarie is an American civil rights activist-a lawyer, filmmaker, author, and organizer. Valarie grabbed her camera and began to drive across America and tell people’s stories in order to fight hate and call for love. She remembered her grandfather’s instruction: “Do not abandon your post.” What did it mean to be a warrior now? Balbir Uncle wore a turban just like her grandfather. Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed by a man who saw him as a terrorist and someone who did not belong in the U.S. Her Sikh uncle was murdered in a hate crime on September 15, 2001. Valarie’s greatest test came when she was twenty years old. She starts to practice love in the face of hate. She returns to school and tries to see her classmates who had been cruel to her with eyes of wonder. She decides she will work hard to be a warrior one day too.

Valarie looks up at her grandfather and his tall turban. “Do not abandon your post,” Papa Ji says. She put on a turban, mounted a horse, and led the men back into battle. A young woman named Mai Bhago told them not to be afraid. In 1705, the story goes, forty soldiers ran away from the battlefield where they were supposed to fight to defend people from an invading army. Papa Ji tells her the story of Mai Bhago, the first Sikh woman warrior. She is just a little girl with two long braids. “You must choose to love them anyway, and fight for them when they are in harm’s way. “You must wonder about others, even when they refuse to wonder about you,” says Papa Ji. Valarie’s family is Sikh, but her classmates did not know anything about her faith. Their long hair and turbans are meant to stand out in a crowd, so that you can come to them for help. Sikhs keep their hair long- many wrap their long hair in turbans-to show their commitment to love and justice.

The Sikh faith is now the fifth-largest organized religion in the world. Guru Nanak’s followers were called “ Sikhs,” students of truth.

Valarie kaur book