"It was the one thing we had not yet done. Valarie Kaur tells the story of confronting her family friend's murderer and about forgiveness and "Revolutionary Love" on the Together Tour, a six-city speaking event that brings together a diverse group of storytellers in an effort to unite and support. ![]() On the tour, Kaur told the story of how she and Sodhi's brother, Rana, came to make the call to Roque in his prison cell after their annual remembrance of Sodhi's death. This fall, Kaur appeared on the Together Tour, a speaking tour including a diverse group of storytellers with the goal of helping others find their purpose in life. Now married and a mother to a 2-year-old, 35-year-old Kaur continues to try to teach the world how to heal and forgive and respond to hate with what she calls "Revolutionary Love." 11 attacks however, his killing also "turned a generation of young people like me into activists," said Kaur. Sodhi's murder was the first in a slew of hate crimes against Sikh and Muslim Americans in the wake of the Sept. Roque was sentenced to death for Sodhi's murder, but his sentence was later reduced to life in prison. In another attack that the FBI is investigating as a hate crime, a gunman in Kansas shouted racial slurs and opened fire on Indian men at a bar, wounding two and killing Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32. That crime was echoed last month when a Sikh man wearing a turban was shot outside his Seattle-area home by a gunman who allegedly shouted, "Go back to your own country." The victim in that case was struck in the arm and is recovering. Roque shot him five times in the back before moving on to other locations where he shot at more people. Four days later, she suffered an additional personal loss when Sodhi was gunned down in a hate crime in Mesa, Arizona, by a man named Frank Roque.Īccording to Kaur, the night of September 11, Roque told a waiter at Applebee's, “I’m going to go out and shoot some towel heads,” and “we should kill their children, too, because they’ll grow up to be like their parents.” Four days later, Roque drove to Sodhi's gas station in Mesa, Arizona, where Sodhi was planting crates of flowers in front of the store. What she did know: on September 11, 2001, the United States suffered terrible losses at the hands of terrorists. It is enough.Kaur did not know much about Sodhi's murderer. Each morning, I wake to the gift of a new lifetime. "Now, are you ready to let go of this lifetime? Are you ready to think of the work you have done today and know that it was enough? Are you ready to behold everyone and everything you have ever known and loved, kiss them, and let them go? Are you ready to die a kind of death?"Įach night, I die a kind of death. "What are you most grateful for in this lifetime? Every day and every lifetime offers a new reason for gratitude. "What was the most joyful part of this lifetime?" Every day and every lifetime, no matter how hard, contains moments of joy. How did you get through it?" We somehow managed to make it to the end of this day, the end of this lifetime. "What was the hardest part in this lifetime? Notice where you sense that hardship in your body. “Think of today as an entire lifetime," Wise Woman says to me before I fall asleep. See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love So I ask myself, What is this story demanding of me? What will I do now that I know this?” As Hannah Arendt says, 'One trains one's imagination to go visiting.' When the story is done, we must return to our skin, our own worldview, and notice how we have been changed by our visit. As soon as I notice feeling unmoored, I try to pull myself back into my body, like returning home. Sometimes I start to lose myself in their story. I try to understand what matters to them, not what I think matters. The most critical part of listening is asking what is at stake for the other person. I just need to feel safe enough to stay curious. But I also know that it's okay if I don't feel very much for them at all. ![]() Empathy is cognitive and emotional-to inhabit another person's view of the world is to feel the world with them. I am always partially listening to the thoughts in my own head when others are speaking, so I consciously quiet my thoughts and begin to listen with my senses. When I really want to hear another person's story, I try to leave my preconceptions at the door and draw close to their telling.
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