| Recorded at | November 01, 2017 |
|---|---|
| Event | TEDWomen 2017 |
| Duration (min:sec) | 21:59 |
| Video Type | TED Stage Talk |
| Words per minute | 131.13 very slow |
| Readability (FK) | 68.5 very easy |
| Speaker | Valarie Kaur |
| Description | American activist, lawyer, filmmaker |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
What's the antidote to rising nationalism, polarization and hate? In this inspiring, poetic talk, Valarie Kaur asks us to reclaim love as a revolutionary act. As she journeys from the birthing room to tragic sites of bloodshed, Kaur shows us how the choice to love can be a force for justice.
| 1 | 00:12 | (Sikh Prayer) Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, | ||
| 2 | 00:15 | Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh. | ||
| 3 | 00:20 | There is a moment on the birthing table | ||
| 4 | 00:24 | that feels like dying. | ||
| 5 | 00:28 | The body in labor stretches to form an impossible circle. | ||
| 6 | 00:31 | The contractions are less than a minute apart. | ||
| 7 | 00:34 | Wave after wave, there is barely time to breathe. | ||
| 8 | 00:38 | The medical term: | ||
| 9 | 00:39 | "transition," | ||
| 10 | 00:42 | because "feels like dying" is not scientific enough. | ||
| 11 | 00:45 | (Laughter) | ||
| 12 | 00:46 | I checked. | ||
| 13 | 00:49 | During my transition, | ||
| 14 | 00:50 | my husband was pressing down on my sacrum | ||
| 15 | 00:52 | to keep my body from breaking. | ||
| 16 | 00:53 | My father was waiting behind the hospital curtain ... | ||
| 17 | 00:58 | more like hiding. | ||
| 18 | 01:00 | But my mother was at my side. | ||
| 19 | 01:03 | The midwife said she could see the baby's head, | ||
| 20 | 01:07 | but all I could feel was a ring of fire. | ||
| 21 | 01:10 | I turned to my mother and said, "I can't," | ||
| 22 | 01:12 | but she was already pouring my grandfather's prayer in my ear. | ||
| 23 | 01:16 | (Sikh Prayer) "Tati Vao Na Lagi, Par Brahm Sarnai." | ||
| 24 | 01:19 | "The hot winds cannot touch you." | ||
| 25 | 01:23 | "You are brave," she said. | ||
| 26 | 01:25 | "You are brave." | ||
| 27 | 01:30 | And suddenly I saw my grandmother standing behind my mother. | ||
| 28 | 01:37 | And her mother behind her. | ||
| 29 | 01:39 | And her mother behind her. | ||
| 30 | 01:42 | A long line of women who had pushed through the fire before me. | ||
| 31 | 01:45 | I took a breath; | ||
| 32 | 01:46 | I pushed; | ||
| 33 | 01:48 | my son was born. | ||
| 34 | 01:51 | As I held him in my arms, shaking and sobbing | ||
| 35 | 01:53 | from the rush of oxytocin that flooded my body, | ||
| 36 | 01:57 | my mother was already preparing to feed me. | ||
| 37 | 02:00 | Nursing her baby as I nursed mine. | ||
| 38 | 02:04 | My mother had never stopped laboring for me, | ||
| 39 | 02:08 | from my birth to my son's birth. | ||
| 40 | 02:10 | She already knew what I was just beginning to name. | ||
| 41 | 02:14 | That love is more than a rush of feeling | ||
| 42 | 02:18 | that happens to us if we're lucky. | ||
| 43 | 02:21 | Love is sweet labor. | ||
| 44 | 02:25 | Fierce. | ||
| 45 | 02:26 | Bloody. | ||
| 46 | 02:28 | Imperfect. | ||
| 47 | 02:30 | Life-giving. | ||
| 48 | 02:32 | A choice we make over and over again. | ||
| 49 | 02:39 | I am an American civil rights activist | ||
| 50 | 02:41 | who has labored with communities of color since September 11, | ||
| 51 | 02:45 | fighting unjust policies by the state and acts of hate in the street. | ||
| 52 | 02:49 | And in our most painful moments, | ||
| 53 | 02:52 | in the face of the fires of injustice, | ||
| 54 | 02:54 | I have seen labors of love deliver us. | ||
| 55 | 03:00 | My life on the frontlines of fighting hate in America has been a study | ||
| 56 | 03:04 | in what I've come to call revolutionary love. | ||
| 57 | 03:10 | Revolutionary love is the choice to enter into labor | ||
| 58 | 03:16 | for others who do not look like us, | ||
| 59 | 03:19 | for our opponents who hurt us | ||
| 60 | 03:22 | and for ourselves. | ||
| 61 | 03:25 | In this era of enormous rage, | ||
| 62 | 03:28 | when the fires are burning all around us, | ||
| 63 | 03:32 | I believe that revolutionary love is the call of our times. | ||
| 64 | 03:40 | Now, if you cringe when people say, "Love is the answer ..." | ||
| 65 | 03:45 | I do, too. | ||
| 66 | 03:46 | (Laughter) | ||
| 67 | 03:47 | I am a lawyer. | ||
| 68 | 03:49 | (Laughter) | ||
| 69 | 03:51 | So let me show you how I came to see love as a force for social justice | ||
| 70 | 03:56 | through three lessons. | ||
| 71 | 04:01 | My first encounter with hate was in the schoolyard. | ||
| 72 | 04:05 | I was a little girl growing up in California, | ||
| 73 | 04:08 | where my family has lived and farmed for a century. | ||
| 74 | 04:12 | When I was told that I would go to hell because I was not Christian, | ||
| 75 | 04:15 | called a "black dog" because I was not white, | ||
| 76 | 04:18 | I ran to my grandfather's arms. | ||
| 77 | 04:20 | Papa Ji dried my tears -- | ||
| 78 | 04:22 | gave me the words of Guru Nanak, | ||
| 79 | 04:24 | the founder of the Sikh faith. | ||
| 80 | 04:27 | "I see no stranger," said Nanak. | ||
| 81 | 04:29 | "I see no enemy." | ||
| 82 | 04:33 | My grandfather taught me | ||
| 83 | 04:34 | that I could choose to see all the faces I meet | ||
| 84 | 04:39 | and wonder about them. | ||
| 85 | 04:42 | And if I wonder about them, | ||
| 86 | 04:44 | then I will listen to their stories even when it's hard. | ||
| 87 | 04:48 | I will refuse to hate them even when they hate me. | ||
| 88 | 04:51 | I will even vow to protect them when they are in harm's way. | ||
| 89 | 04:54 | That's what it means to be a Sikh: | ||
| 90 | 04:56 | S-i-k-h. | ||
| 91 | 04:58 | To walk the path of a warrior saint. | ||
| 92 | 05:00 | He told me the story of the first Sikh woman warrior, | ||
| 93 | 05:03 | Mai Bhago. | ||
| 94 | 05:05 | The story goes there were 40 soldiers who abandoned their post | ||
| 95 | 05:08 | during a great battle against an empire. | ||
| 96 | 05:10 | They returned to a village, | ||
| 97 | 05:12 | and this village woman turned to them and said, | ||
| 98 | 05:15 | "You will not abandon the fight. | ||
| 99 | 05:18 | You will return to the fire, | ||
| 100 | 05:21 | and I will lead you." | ||
| 101 | 05:24 | She mounted a horse. | ||
| 102 | 05:26 | She donned a turban. | ||
| 103 | 05:28 | And with sword in her hand and fire in her eyes, | ||
| 104 | 05:31 | she led them where no one else would. | ||
| 105 | 05:33 | She became the one she was waiting for. | ||
| 106 | 05:38 | "Don't abandon your posts, my dear." | ||
| 107 | 05:41 | My grandfather saw me as a warrior. | ||
| 108 | 05:43 | I was a little girl in two long braids, | ||
| 109 | 05:46 | but I promised. | ||
| 110 | 05:49 | Fast-forward, I'm 20 years old, | ||
| 111 | 05:54 | watching the Twin Towers fall, | ||
| 112 | 05:58 | the horror stuck in my throat, | ||
| 113 | 06:00 | and then a face flashes on the screen: | ||
| 114 | 06:03 | a brown man with a turban and beard, | ||
| 115 | 06:05 | and I realize that our nation's new enemy looks like my grandfather. | ||
| 116 | 06:12 | And these turbans meant to represent our commitment to serve | ||
| 117 | 06:16 | cast us as terrorists. | ||
| 118 | 06:18 | And Sikhs became targets of hate, | ||
| 119 | 06:20 | alongside our Muslim brothers and sisters. | ||
| 120 | 06:22 | The first person killed in a hate crime after September 11 was a Sikh man, | ||
| 121 | 06:27 | standing in front of his gas station in Arizona. | ||
| 122 | 06:31 | Balbir Singh Sodhi was a family friend I called "uncle," | ||
| 123 | 06:38 | murdered by a man who called himself "patriot." | ||
| 124 | 06:45 | He is the first of many to have been killed, | ||
| 125 | 06:50 | but his story -- | ||
| 126 | 06:51 | our stories barely made the evening news. | ||
| 127 | 06:57 | I didn't know what to do, | ||
| 128 | 06:58 | but I had a camera, | ||
| 129 | 07:00 | I faced the fire. | ||
| 130 | 07:02 | I went to his widow, | ||
| 131 | 07:04 | Joginder Kaur. | ||
| 132 | 07:06 | I wept with her, and I asked her, | ||
| 133 | 07:09 | "What would you like to tell the people of America?" | ||
| 134 | 07:14 | I was expecting blame. | ||
| 135 | 07:18 | But she looked at me and said, | ||
| 136 | 07:22 | "Tell them, 'Thank you.' | ||
| 137 | 07:25 | 3,000 Americans came to my husband's memorial. | ||
| 138 | 07:29 | They did not know me, | ||
| 139 | 07:31 | but they wept with me. | ||
| 140 | 07:34 | Tell them, 'Thank you.'" | ||
| 141 | 07:39 | Thousands of people showed up, | ||
| 142 | 07:41 | because unlike national news, | ||
| 143 | 07:43 | the local media told Balbir Uncle's story. | ||
| 144 | 07:47 | Stories can create the wonder | ||
| 145 | 07:49 | that turns strangers into sisters and brothers. | ||
| 146 | 07:54 | This was my first lesson in revolutionary love -- | ||
| 147 | 07:58 | that stories can help us see no stranger. | ||
| 148 | 08:04 | And so ... | ||
| 149 | 08:06 | my camera became my sword. | ||
| 150 | 08:09 | My law degree became my shield. | ||
| 151 | 08:12 | My film partner became my husband. | ||
| 152 | 08:15 | (Laughter) | ||
| 153 | 08:17 | I didn't expect that. | ||
| 154 | 08:19 | And we became part of a generation of advocates | ||
| 155 | 08:25 | working with communities facing their own fires. | ||
| 156 | 08:28 | I worked inside of supermax prisons, | ||
| 157 | 08:32 | on the shores of Guantanamo, | ||
| 158 | 08:34 | at the sites of mass shootings | ||
| 159 | 08:35 | when the blood was still fresh on the ground. | ||
| 160 | 08:39 | And every time, | ||
| 161 | 08:41 | for 15 years, | ||
| 162 | 08:43 | with every film, with every lawsuit, | ||
| 163 | 08:45 | with every campaign, | ||
| 164 | 08:46 | I thought we were making the nation safer | ||
| 165 | 08:49 | for the next generation. | ||
| 166 | 08:54 | And then my son was born. | ||
| 167 | 09:05 | In a time ... | ||
| 168 | 09:08 | when hate crimes against our communities | ||
| 169 | 09:10 | are at the highest they have been since 9/11. | ||
| 170 | 09:15 | When right-wing nationalist movements are on the rise around the globe | ||
| 171 | 09:19 | and have captured the presidency of the United States. | ||
| 172 | 09:25 | When white supremacists march in our streets, | ||
| 173 | 09:28 | torches high, hoods off. | ||
| 174 | 09:32 | And I have to reckon with the fact | ||
| 175 | 09:37 | that my son is growing up in a country more dangerous for him | ||
| 176 | 09:42 | than the one I was given. | ||
| 177 | 09:47 | And there will be moments | ||
| 178 | 09:51 | when I cannot protect him | ||
| 179 | 09:54 | when he is seen as a terrorist ... | ||
| 180 | 10:00 | just as black people in America | ||
| 181 | 10:05 | are still seen as criminal. | ||
| 182 | 10:08 | Brown people, illegal. | ||
| 183 | 10:11 | Queer and trans people, immoral. | ||
| 184 | 10:14 | Indigenous people, savage. | ||
| 185 | 10:17 | Women and girls as property. | ||
| 186 | 10:19 | And when they fail to see our bodies as some mother's child, | ||
| 187 | 10:22 | it becomes easier to ban us, | ||
| 188 | 10:26 | detain us, | ||
| 189 | 10:27 | deport us, | ||
| 190 | 10:29 | imprison us, | ||
| 191 | 10:30 | sacrifice us for the illusion of security. | ||
| 192 | 10:38 | (Applause) | ||
| 193 | 10:50 | I wanted to abandon my post. | ||
| 194 | 10:54 | But I made a promise, | ||
| 195 | 10:58 | so I returned to the gas station | ||
| 196 | 11:01 | where Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed 15 years to the day. | ||
| 197 | 11:07 | I set down a candle in the spot where he bled to death. | ||
| 198 | 11:12 | His brother, Rana, turned to me | ||
| 199 | 11:15 | and said, "Nothing has changed." | ||
| 200 | 11:19 | And I asked, | ||
| 201 | 11:21 | "Who have we not yet tried to love?" | ||
| 202 | 11:27 | We decided to call the murderer in prison. | ||
| 203 | 11:32 | The phone rings. | ||
| 204 | 11:34 | My heart is beating in my ears. | ||
| 205 | 11:37 | I hear the voice of Frank Roque, | ||
| 206 | 11:40 | a man who once said ... | ||
| 207 | 11:44 | "I'm going to go out and shoot some towel heads. | ||
| 208 | 11:51 | We should kill their children, too." | ||
| 209 | 11:55 | And every emotional impulse in me says, "I can't." | ||
| 210 | 12:04 | It becomes an act of will to wonder. | ||
| 211 | 12:10 | "Why?" I ask. | ||
| 212 | 12:15 | "Why did you agree to speak with us?" | ||
| 213 | 12:21 | Frank says, "I'm sorry for what happened, | ||
| 214 | 12:24 | but I'm also sorry for all the people killed on 9/11." | ||
| 215 | 12:28 | He fails to take responsibility. | ||
| 216 | 12:30 | I become angry to protect Rana, | ||
| 217 | 12:34 | but Rana is still wondering about Frank -- | ||
| 218 | 12:41 | listening -- | ||
| 219 | 12:43 | responds. | ||
| 220 | 12:45 | "Frank, this is the first time I'm hearing you say | ||
| 221 | 12:49 | that you feel sorry." | ||
| 222 | 12:55 | And Frank -- | ||
| 223 | 12:57 | Frank says, "Yes. | ||
| 224 | 13:02 | I am sorry for what I did to your brother. | ||
| 225 | 13:07 | One day when I go to heaven to be judged by God, | ||
| 226 | 13:13 | I will ask to see your brother. | ||
| 227 | 13:16 | And I will hug him. | ||
| 228 | 13:19 | And I will ask him for forgiveness." | ||
| 229 | 13:25 | And Rana says ... | ||
| 230 | 13:29 | "We already forgave you." | ||
| 231 | 13:35 | Forgiveness is not forgetting. | ||
| 232 | 13:40 | Forgiveness is freedom from hate. | ||
| 233 | 13:45 | Because when we are free from hate, | ||
| 234 | 13:48 | we see the ones who hurt us not as monsters, | ||
| 235 | 13:51 | but as people who themselves are wounded, | ||
| 236 | 13:54 | who themselves feel threatened, | ||
| 237 | 13:56 | who don't know what else to do with their insecurity | ||
| 238 | 13:58 | but to hurt us, to pull the trigger, | ||
| 239 | 14:00 | or cast the vote, | ||
| 240 | 14:02 | or pass the policy aimed at us. | ||
| 241 | 14:04 | But if some of us begin to wonder about them, | ||
| 242 | 14:08 | listen even to their stories, | ||
| 243 | 14:12 | we learn that participation in oppression comes at a cost. | ||
| 244 | 14:18 | It cuts them off from their own capacity to love. | ||
| 245 | 14:27 | This was my second lesson in revolutionary love. | ||
| 246 | 14:34 | We love our opponents when we tend the wound in them. | ||
| 247 | 14:42 | Tending to the wound is not healing them -- | ||
| 248 | 14:45 | only they can do that. | ||
| 249 | 14:47 | Just tending to it allows us | ||
| 250 | 14:51 | to see our opponents: | ||
| 251 | 14:54 | the terrorist, the fanatic, the demagogue. | ||
| 252 | 14:59 | They've been radicalized by cultures and policies that we together can change. | ||
| 253 | 15:07 | I looked back on all of our campaigns, | ||
| 254 | 15:12 | and I realized that any time we fought bad actors, | ||
| 255 | 15:16 | we didn't change very much. | ||
| 256 | 15:20 | But when we chose to wield our swords and shields | ||
| 257 | 15:24 | to battle bad systems, | ||
| 258 | 15:27 | that's when we saw change. | ||
| 259 | 15:30 | I have worked on campaigns | ||
| 260 | 15:32 | that released hundreds of people out of solitary confinement, | ||
| 261 | 15:38 | reformed a corrupt police department, | ||
| 262 | 15:40 | changed federal hate crimes policy. | ||
| 263 | 15:44 | The choice to love our opponents is moral and pragmatic, | ||
| 264 | 15:48 | and it opens up the previously unimaginable possibility | ||
| 265 | 15:54 | of reconciliation. | ||
| 266 | 15:59 | But remember ... | ||
| 267 | 16:02 | it took 15 years to make that phone call. | ||
| 268 | 16:06 | I had to tend to my own rage and grief first. | ||
| 269 | 16:12 | Loving our opponents requires us to love ourselves. | ||
| 270 | 16:19 | Gandhi, King, Mandela -- | ||
| 271 | 16:21 | they taught a lot about how to love others and opponents. | ||
| 272 | 16:26 | They didn't talk a lot about loving ourselves. | ||
| 273 | 16:30 | This is a feminist intervention. | ||
| 274 | 16:33 | (Applause) | ||
| 275 | 16:35 | Yes. | ||
| 276 | 16:37 | Yes. | ||
| 277 | 16:38 | (Applause) | ||
| 278 | 16:41 | Because for too long have women and women of color been told | ||
| 279 | 16:45 | to suppress their rage, | ||
| 280 | 16:47 | suppress their grief in the name of love and forgiveness. | ||
| 281 | 16:50 | But when we suppress our rage, | ||
| 282 | 16:52 | that's when it hardens into hate directed outward, | ||
| 283 | 16:55 | but usually directed inward. | ||
| 284 | 16:59 | But mothering has taught me that all of our emotions are necessary. | ||
| 285 | 17:05 | Joy is the gift of love. | ||
| 286 | 17:09 | Grief is the price of love. | ||
| 287 | 17:13 | Anger is the force that protects it. | ||
| 288 | 17:18 | This was my third lesson in revolutionary love. | ||
| 289 | 17:23 | We love ourselves | ||
| 290 | 17:24 | when we breathe through the fire of pain | ||
| 291 | 17:29 | and refuse to let it harden into hate. | ||
| 292 | 17:34 | That's why I believe | ||
| 293 | 17:37 | that love must be practiced in all three directions | ||
| 294 | 17:40 | to be revolutionary. | ||
| 295 | 17:43 | Loving just ourselves feels good, | ||
| 296 | 17:47 | but it's narcissism. | ||
| 297 | 17:49 | (Laughter) | ||
| 298 | 17:53 | Loving only our opponents is self-loathing. | ||
| 299 | 17:58 | Loving only others is ineffective. | ||
| 300 | 18:03 | This is where a lot of our movements live right now. | ||
| 301 | 18:08 | We need to practice all three forms of love. | ||
| 302 | 18:13 | And so, how do we practice it? | ||
| 303 | 18:16 | Ready? | ||
| 304 | 18:18 | Number one ... | ||
| 305 | 18:21 | in order to love others, | ||
| 306 | 18:23 | see no stranger. | ||
| 307 | 18:25 | We can train our eyes to look upon strangers on the street, | ||
| 308 | 18:29 | on the subway, on the screen, | ||
| 309 | 18:30 | and say in our minds, | ||
| 310 | 18:32 | "Brother, | ||
| 311 | 18:34 | sister, | ||
| 312 | 18:35 | aunt, | ||
| 313 | 18:36 | uncle." | ||
| 314 | 18:38 | And when we say this, what we are saying is, | ||
| 315 | 18:40 | "You are a part of me I do not yet know. | ||
| 316 | 18:44 | I choose to wonder about you. | ||
| 317 | 18:48 | I will listen for your stories | ||
| 318 | 18:50 | and pick up a sword when you are in harm's way." | ||
| 319 | 18:55 | And so, number two: | ||
| 320 | 18:58 | in order to love our opponents, | ||
| 321 | 19:00 | tend the wound. | ||
| 322 | 19:03 | Can you see the wound in the ones who hurt you? | ||
| 323 | 19:07 | Can you wonder even about them? | ||
| 324 | 19:11 | And if this question sends panic through your body, | ||
| 325 | 19:15 | then your most revolutionary act | ||
| 326 | 19:18 | is to wonder, listen and respond to your own needs. | ||
| 327 | 19:22 | Number three: | ||
| 328 | 19:25 | in order to love ourselves, | ||
| 329 | 19:27 | breathe and push. | ||
| 330 | 19:30 | When we are pushing into the fires in our bodies | ||
| 331 | 19:32 | or the fires in the world, | ||
| 332 | 19:35 | we need to be breathing together | ||
| 333 | 19:38 | in order to be pushing together. | ||
| 334 | 19:40 | How are you breathing each day? | ||
| 335 | 19:44 | Who are you breathing with? | ||
| 336 | 19:48 | Because ... | ||
| 337 | 19:51 | when executive orders and news of violence hits our bodies hard, | ||
| 338 | 19:56 | sometimes less than a minute apart, | ||
| 339 | 19:59 | it feels like dying. | ||
| 340 | 20:03 | In those moments, | ||
| 341 | 20:05 | my son places his hand on my cheek and says, | ||
| 342 | 20:09 | "Dance time, mommy?" | ||
| 343 | 20:13 | And we dance. | ||
| 344 | 20:15 | In the darkness, we breathe and we dance. | ||
| 345 | 20:18 | Our family becomes a pocket of revolutionary love. | ||
| 346 | 20:21 | Our joy is an act of moral resistance. | ||
| 347 | 20:24 | How are you protecting your joy each day? | ||
| 348 | 20:26 | Because in joy we see even darkness with new eyes. | ||
| 349 | 20:33 | And so the mother in me asks, | ||
| 350 | 20:39 | what if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, | ||
| 351 | 20:45 | but the darkness of the womb? | ||
| 352 | 20:49 | What if our future is not dead, | ||
| 353 | 20:53 | but still waiting to be born? | ||
| 354 | 20:57 | What if this is our great transition? | ||
| 355 | 21:01 | Remember the wisdom of the midwife. | ||
| 356 | 21:04 | "Breathe," she says. | ||
| 357 | 21:06 | And then -- | ||
| 358 | 21:07 | "push." | ||
| 359 | 21:09 | Because if we don't push, we will die. | ||
| 360 | 21:11 | If we don't breathe, we will die. | ||
| 361 | 21:13 | Revolutionary love requires us to breathe and push through the fire | ||
| 362 | 21:18 | with a warrior's heart and a saint's eyes | ||
| 363 | 21:20 | so that one day ... | ||
| 364 | 21:24 | one day you will see my son as your own | ||
| 365 | 21:29 | and protect him when I am not there. | ||
| 366 | 21:34 | You will tend to the wound in the ones who want to hurt him. | ||
| 367 | 21:39 | You will teach him how to love himself | ||
| 368 | 21:42 | because you love yourself. | ||
| 369 | 21:46 | You will whisper in his ear, | ||
| 370 | 21:49 | as I whisper in yours, | ||
| 371 | 21:52 | "You are brave." | ||
| 372 | 21:55 | You are brave. | ||
| 373 | 21:58 | Thank you. | ||
| 374 | 21:59 | (Applause) | ||
| 375 | 22:00 | (Sikh Prayer) Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, | ||
| 376 | 22:02 | Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh. | ||
| 377 | 22:03 | (Applause) | ||
| 378 | 22:05 | (Cheering) | ||
| 379 | 22:08 | (Applause) |