SEE NO STRANGER
SEE NO STRANGER: A Memoir & Manifesto of Revolutionary Love is part of a larger movement to reclaim love as a force for social justice in American life. The greatest social reformers in history — Gandhi, Mandela, King — rooted entire social movements in the ethic of love. It’s time to reclaim love today but this time through a feminist lens. I believe that love is sweet labor — fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving. Revolutionary Love is the choice to enter into labor for others, our opponents and ourselves.”
- A Sikh Sermon at the Pentagon – The Huffington Post
- How to Make Love, Not Bigotry – CNN
- Sikh Doctor’s Response to Brutal Hate Attack? ‘Love and Service’ – MSNBC
- A Year Later, Sikhs Keep Up Fight against Gun Violence – CNN
- My Remarks at the White House Commemorating the Sikh Faith – The Huffington Post
- The First-Ever Sikh Prayer at the Pentagon – The Huffington Post
- For Sikhs and Muslims, Fear after a Terror Attack – The Washington Post
Writing on Internet Freedom
- ‘First We Pray, Then We Organize’ The Unlikely Coalition for Net Neutrality – The Huffington Post
- An Open Internet, for God’s sake! – The Hill
- 5 Reasons the Future of Faith Depends on the Open Internet – Sojourners
- The Open Internet Order Becomes Law: Why Faith Leaders are Celebrating – The Huffington Post
- Class of 2015: Flare Up, Let Your Life Sing – College of St. Benedict Commencement Address – The Huffington Post
- Class of 2013: Enter the Whirlwind – Stanford University Baccalaureate Address – Stanford University
- Hesitant About Marriage Equality, Supreme Court? Follow the Millennials’ Lead – MSNBC
- Millennials to Candidates: Talk to Us – CNN
- Attention to Women’s Diseases Should Reach beyond Angelina Jolie – MSNBC
- ‘Lean in’? For Millennials, the Question Is ‘What Are We Leaning Toward’? – MSNBC
Writing on Gun Violence
- Honoring the Charleston Nine: Today, We mourn. Tomorrow, we organize.– The Washington Post
- 3000+ Prayers Pour Into Chapel Hill After Slaying of Muslim American Students – Groundswell
- One Year after Oak Creek: Why the FBI Tracking Hate Crimes Is a Victory– MSNBC
- Sikhs Find Faith in Oak Creek, One Year Later– The Washington Post
- My Remarks at the Oak Creek One-Year Anniversary Vigil – valariekaur-staging.wedyb4w0-liquidwebsites.com blog
- Why We Must Remember Oak Creek– The Huffington Post
- Remembering the Oak Creek Tragedy in Film– The Huffington Post
- Journey from Oak Creek to Newtown– The Washington Post
Book and Journal Contributions
Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice
As the eighth volume in Dave Eggers and Lola Vollen’s poignant Voice of Witness series, with Valarie as associate editor, Patriot Acts is a groundbreaking collection of oral histories that tells the stories of men and women who have been needlessly swept up in the War on Terror. In their own words, narrators recount personal experiences of the post-9/11 backlash that have deeply altered their lives and communities. Patriot Acts illuminates these experiences in a compelling collection of eighteen oral histories from men and women who have found themselves subject to a wide range of human and civil rights abuses—from rendition and torture, to workplace discrimination, bullying, FBI surveillance and harassment.
My Neighbor’s Faith
This groundbreaking volume gathers an array of inspiring and penetrating stories about the interrligious encounters of outstanding community leaders, scholars, public intellectuals, and activist from the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. With wisdom, wit, courage, and humility, these writers from a range of religious backgrounds share their personal experience of border-crossing, and the lessons learned from their interreligious adventures. We live in the most religiously diverse society in the history of humankind. Every day, people of different religious beliefs and practices encounter one another in a myriad of settings.
Women, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership
The world is in crisis and it seems that many are looking to women to heal the planet and our human family. Before women can step into our full potential as leaders and guides in this moment, we must individually reconnect with our deepest wisdom and with our spiritual roots; collectively heal the many dimensions of separation that keep us fragmented and ineffective as agents of social change; and globally reclaim our rightful place as spiritual leaders in service of a balanced and compassionate new paradigm. This empowering resource engages women in an interactive exploration of the challenges and opportunities on the frontier of women’s spiritual leadership.
Emerging From the Shadow of September 11
On September 15, 2001, the murder of a turbaned Sikh family friend launched then-college student Valarie Kaur on a road trip to chronicle hate crimes across the United States. For nearly a decade, she filmed stories in her community—Sikh American men, women, and children whose brown skin and turbans marked them as suspects. Her journey unfolded into a broader exploration of who counts as “one of us” in times of crisis. She now speaks widely to inspire all Americans to recognize that their struggles to live without fear are bound up in one movement for justice.
Civil Rights in Wartime
In the days, months, and now years following the events of September 11th, discrimination against the Sikh community in America has escalated sharply, due in part to a populace that often confuses Sikhs, compelled by their faith to wear turbans, with the Muslim extremists responsible for the devastating terrorist attacks. Although Sikhs have since mobilized to spread awareness and condemn violence against themselves and Muslims, there has been a conspicuous absence of academic literature to aid scholars and commentators in understanding the effect of the backlash on the Sikh community, the group disproportionately impacted by post-9/11 discrimination.
Report from Valarie Kaur, October 5 – 8, 2009; The National Institute of Military Justice Reports from Guantánamo Volume II
The National Institute of Military Justice (NIMJ) was founded in 1991 to advance the fair administration of military justice and to foster improved public understanding of the military justice system. Between 2008 and 2009, observers from the Nation Institute of Military Justice were invited to observe military commissions at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Valarie served as official observer working to ensure that all military commission satisfied the right to a public trial.