speaker to be an astonishing woman. i have sought to bring her here for two years and i am wowed by her for three reasons the first is that for someone still relatively young she has just about the most varied and extraordinary activist resume i've ever seen. an attorney who in her youth clerked on the senate judiciary committee and served as a legal observer at guantanamo bay she has worked as both a lawyer and activist

on complex civil rights cases hate crimes racial profiling immigration detention gun violence solitary confinement marriage equality and internet freedom. an award scholar and educator with multiple degrees from such schools as harvard stanford and yale including in law international relations media and religious studies she has become one of the most important voices. to emerge from the american sikh community and a highly influential leader on the national stage including as the- brown movement which considered america's largest multi faith online organizing network. a film and media maker with deep expertise in building story based campaigns to advance human rights movements she

founded the yellow visual law project where she's taught students how to make films for social change and co founded faithful internet to build the movement for net neutrality. her many films included in every fall stigma about the impact of police stop and frisk policies alienation about immigration raids the worst of the worst about solitary confinement in prison and oak creek in memoriam about an infamous mass shooting at a sikh temple. in wisconsin. valerie's personal story helps explain her drive to remedy wrongs born and raised in clovis california where her family settled as sikh farmers in nineteen thirteen she has someone with literally deep roots in the american earth. but when a close friend of hers

was the first person killed in a hate crime after september eleventh two thousand and one she began to document hate crimes against sikh and muslim americans. which resulted in her first film the award winning divided we fall and helped launch her life of civic engagement. the second thing that dazzles me about valerie is that after spending much of her life combating horrific injustice and intolerance having been inside supermax prisons. at guantanamo and at sites of hate crimes and mass shootings she emerged not as an embittered cynic. but as an apostle of love as the ultimate source of social action. she founded the revolutionary love project a national initiative which uses a wide range of communication and mobilization

to. to equip and inspire people to practice the ethic of love. i encourage you if you were is moved by valeria i am go visit revolutionary love dot net and sign up because there's a book coming. valerie had a revelation. to combat racism nationalism and hate we cannot succumb to rage ourselves or we have already lost. the greatest social reformers in history grounded entire movements in the ethic of love and if we re claim love through a feminist lens she says then love can be seen as a sort of birth labor. fierce blood. in perfect but life giving. the third thing that wows me about valerie is as a woman. i know how hard it is and as a woman with hall that education. to take a stand

on behalf of love which has been trivialized. feminized and sidelined in our in in conversations and strategy movement strategic movements. for a long time so the courage that valerie and bodies- is incredibly inspiring to me revolutionary love is the choice to labor for others for our opponents for the earth and for ourselves. it's a difficult path to walk in our highly polarized world teetering on the edge of multiple existential tipping points but if anyone can teach us how to make love the basis of our action in the world. it will be through the truly extraordinary dignity eloquence and strategic savvy of valerie kerr. please

join me in welcoming. i want to begin by honoring the ancestors of the slander me walk people and their descendants. and the indigenous elders and the youth representing ninety nine different nations here today. i want to invoke your ancestors bravery and resilience. i want to imagine them filling up this room right now in fact i would invite each of you to imagine an ancestor whose life. makes you brave. can you think of one. yes you can say them out loud. i imagine all these ancestors standing behind each of you. imagine this room filling with our ancestors i want to invite you to imagine my grandfather standing behind me. a tall man who wore a turban as part of his sikh faith. he taught me how to be brave. more than a

hundred years ago he arrived from india to america sailing by steamship in the year nineteen thirteen he arrived in a port in san francisco not just a few miles away from here his generation. his generation fought for the right to become citizens to earn equal protection under the law. it was my grandfather's spirit his ancestry behind me when. i was growing up on the land that he farmed and so i invite you to imagine him behind me now as i tell you my story. and share with you why i believe revolutionary love is the call of our times. so my story begins. in the aftermath of september eleventh. in the wake of the horror of those attacks would hate violence erupted on city streets across america members of my community were killed the first. person killed in a hate crime after nine eleven was bull beer singh sodhi a sick father who was killed in front of the store in mesa arizona. by a man who

called himself a patriot he was a family friend i called uncle. and his murder i mean i was going to be an academic. his murder made me an activist i joined a generation of sikh and muslim americans fighting for communities fighting hate violence on the street fighting policies by the states and soon i realize tha o liberation is bound up with one another and so i found myself working with brown and black communities. across the united states sometimes when the blood was still fresh on the ground and with every film with every loss with every campaign i thought we were making the nation safer for the next generation. fast forward to present day. white nationalist declare this presidency as their great awakening. executive orders and policies rain down on us every day so that it becomes difficult to

breed and hate crimes have skyrocketed once again but now. now i am a mother. just a few weeks ago my son was coming home with my father and my mother from a summer concert my son was sitting on my father's shoulders on top of the world and they were going to grab a ride on a ferry to across the marina to come back home i mean he was. his childhood has been magical. until they heard it. go back to the country you came from. my father was hard of hearing so my four year old son had to tell my father what the mean lady said. when they came home my parents were shaken didn't anyone say anything i asked them. and they said no. they were crowded people who watch too saw that no one said anything. just like last time

when my father was walking on a beach with a baby carrier with my son i decided someone called him a suicide bomber. there were no bystanders who spoke up then. and i realize that i have been reckoning with the fact that my son. is growing up in a nation more dangerous for him a little boy with. long hair who may some day where his hair in a turban as part of a speak more dangerous for him that it was for me. more dangerous even than it was for my grandfather that a generation of advocacy that generations of advocacy had not made the nation safer for our children for my son. and i had to reckon with the fact that there will be moments on the street or in the school yard when. i will not be able to protect my son. for sick and muslim americans today are still seen as terrorists. just

as black people in america today are still seen as criminal. just as brown people are still seen as a legal just as indigenous people are still seen a savage just trans and queer people are still seen as a moral. just as jews are still seen as controlling just as women and girls are still seen as property when they fail to see our bodies as some mother's child it becomes easier to ban us. to detain us to incarcerate us to concentrate us to separate us from our families to sacrifice us for the illusion of security. i realize that i am being inaugurated

into the pain that black and brown mothers have long known on the soil that we cannot protect our children from white supremacist violence we can only make them resilient enough to face it. and to insist until our dying breaths that there be no more bystanders. but does it have to be so painful. you know i realize that the last time my body. has been in this much pain. was when i was on the burning table. some women are nodding. you see inverting labor there is a stage that is the most painful stages the

final stage in labor at the body expands to ten centimeters the contractions come so fast there is barely time to breathe it feels like dying it is called a- transition. six i would not have given it this name. during my transition. i remember the first time the midwife said that she could see the baby's head but all i could feel was a ring. of fire. i turned to my mother and i said i can't. my mother had her hands on my forehead. she was whispering in my ear you are brave you are brave my grandfather's prayer thought the founder lucky the hot winds cannot touch you you are brave. and just ahead i saw. my grandmother standing behind my mother. and her mother behind her. and her mother behind her.

a long line of women who had pushed through the fire before me. i took a breath. i pushed. my son was born. you see the stage called transition it feels like dying. but it is the stage that precedes the birth of new life. and so burning as a metaphor has begun to feel my imagination you know how- we say war your honor soldier on. only a subset of men for most of human history have had the experience of going to war yet we all know what it means to be brave enough to fight the good fight right. so too only a subset of women have had the experience of burning or burning that way it is not special. it is very specific it is distinct it requires a certain kind of courage to

create something new and so. the metaphor of burning. i began to wonder if it may have something to have it off for all of us. and it has filled my mind and formed a question and me a question that i've been asking every single day the last two years. what if. what if the darkness. in our country right now in the world right now. he is not the darkness of the tomb. but the darkness of the room. what if our america is not dead. but a country still waiting to be born. what all of our ancestors who pushed through the fire before us who survived genocide and colonization slavery and sexual so what if they are standing

behind us now whispering in our year you are brave you are brave. what is this is our time of great transition. my sisters my brothers my family i believe that we are convening right here right now on this soil at a time when our nation and our world are in transition. for as we speak in this very moment we are seeing the rise of far right wing supremacist movement in this nation and around the world. propping up demagogues mainstreaming nativism undermining democracies and political politicizing the very notion of truth. and we know that america right now is in the midst of a massive demographic transition that within twenty five years the number of people of color will exceed the number of white people for the first time since

colonisation we're at a crossroads. will we will we birth a nation that has never been. a nation that is multi racial multi faith and multi gendered multi cultural nation where power is shared and we strive to protect the dignity of every person. or will we continue to descend into a kind of. civil war. a power struggle with those who want to return america to a past we certain class of white people hold cultural economic and political dominion. the stakes become global when we think of climate change. right so the same

supremacist ideologies that justify colonization the conquest and rape of black and brown people around the globe those same supremacist ideologies have given rise to industries that accumulate wealth by pillaging the earth. poisoning the waters and darkening the skies. global temperatures are climbing the seas are rising the storms are coming the fires are raging in our current leadership is doing nothing to stop it humanity itself is in transition. will we- will we marshal the vision and the skill and the solidarity to solve this problem together. is this the

darkness of the tomb or the darkness of the room. i hear your tears and i feel your energy. i want to say yes i want to say yes. we will under. but i don't know. i don't know. all i know is that the only way we will survive as a people. is if we show up is if we show up to the labor the way that you were showing up right now with your ancestors behind you.

because this brings me to you. you are the community leaders you are the peace builders you are the faith leaders you are in the indigenous healers you have at your house thousands of years of scriptures and stories and- songs so inspiring us to show up to the labor of justice with love i believe that you are the midwives in this time of great transition tasked with burning a new future for all of us. and so i've come to ask you how will you show up. how will you let bravery lead you in how you show up with love. because love the greatest social reformers in history have built and sustained entire nonviolent movements to change the world that were routed that were grounded in love love as a wellspring for courage not love as a rush of feeling but love as sweet flavor. fierce and demanding an imperfect and life giving love is a choice that we

make over and over again i believe i'm a lawyer for so long i couldn't even use the word love i was afraid that i'd be eaten alive until i finally came to terms. with the truth that the only way we will survive the only way that we will a juror the only way we will stay pushing into the fire stay pushing into the fire. is love labor. pain and love that why i. rather love is the call of our times. so okay so this is the offering that i've come to makes for all of you today. because of love is labor. the love can be practiced love can be modeled love can be taught. so what does it mean to practice level we are tired when we grow not how do we keep showing up to the labor. i leave something called the

revolutionary love project we produce tools that equip inspire and mobilize people in the labor for love. and so i've come to give you an offering of three practices that have guided us today three practices that i want to offer you. right now are you ready. all right. revolutionary love is the choice to enter into labor for others for our opponents and for ourselves the first practice see no stranger all the great wisdom traditions of the world carry a vision of oneness the idea that we are inter connected and inter dependence that we can look upon the face of anyone on anything an anti thing and say it's a spiritual declaration and a biological fact you are part of me i do not yet know. yet brain imaging studies tell us that the mind see the world in terms of us and then in an instant who we see as one of us determines who we feel empathy and compassion for who we stand up for the streets and at the polls. authoritarians when the

rest of us let them to humanize entire groups of people but we can change how we see. we can expand the circle who we see as one of us. love begins with a conscious act of wonder and wonder can be practiced drawing close to another person stories listening to their stories turns them. into austin so i ask you whose stories have we not yet heard. whose stories we hear determine whose grief we will lead into our hearts who have you not yet grieved with. because who you grieve with. who you sit with them and weep with determined to you organize with and who you will fight for. how can you use your pen your voice your art to show up in places you haven't yet been to fight in solidarity each of us has an offering and that brings me to the second practice. tend the wound. now how do we fight even our opponents with love. it's tempting it's tempting to see our proponents as evil but i have learned that there are no such thing as as monsters in

this world only human beings who are wounded people who's in securities or anxieties or greed or blindness caused them to hurt us our opponents. the terrorists the fanatic the demagogue in office are not are people who don't know what else to do with their in security but to hurt us to pull the trigger or cast a vote or pass the policy aimed at us but if some of us begin to listen to even their stories. we begin to hear beneath the slogans and sound bites we begin to understand how to defeat the cultural norms and institutions that radicalize them loving our opponents. she is not just moral it is pragmatic. it is strategic it focuses us not dot just on removing bad actors. but burning a new world for all of us to the first acts. in loving one's opponents is to tend to our own wounds. to find safe containers to work their own grief and rage so that our pain doesn't turn into more violence directed outward or inward. then in our healing at some point if and when we are

ready we may be ready to wonder about our opponents. now i know this is hard. it took me fifteen years to process my own grief and rage when i was ready i reached out to both your uncle's murderer. and listen to his story it was painful but i learned that forgiveness is not forgetting forgiveness is freedom from hate. and white supremacists they kerry unresolved grief and rage themselves radicalized by cultures and institutions that we together can change. now. what i say to you you may not be ready to reach out to some of your opponts in fact if you are in harm's way right now your job is to tend to your own wounds to survive the enter. let others do the labor of understanding our opponents that's why we are a community that's why we are a movement we all have different roles. this

brings me to the third practice breve and push. our social justice leaders gandhi king and mandela taught us a lot about how to love others and our opponents but not so much about how to love ourselves this is a feminist intervention. for too long women and women of color and specifically have been told to suppress our rage and grief and the name of love and forgiveness no more the movement can no longer happen on our backs are over our dead bodies. the midwife tells us to breed and then the bush. not to breed the ones and then push the rest of the way known she says brief and pushing them read again. in all of our labors labor raising a family or making a move with our birthing a new nation we need people to help us breathe. and push into the fires of our bodies and the fires in the world and so i ask you how are you reading right now. who are

you breathing with. breed with the earth and the sea and the sky breed with music and movement and meditation every day breed to summon the ancestors at our backs but when we breed. we let joy in. these days even on the darkest days i come home and my son says dance time mommy. we turn on the music so i kind of sway like this been producing the music rises in my son's is picked me up bauman i thrown in the air my little girl now eleven months old. twirler up in the air and suddenly i'm smiling and suddenly i'm laughing instantly joys rushing through my body when we breathe we let joy in and julie. julie reminds us of everything that is good and beautiful and worth fighting for how are you protecting your joy. every day. i loving only ourselves. is

escapism living only our opponents the self loathing loving only others said forgetting to love our opponents ourselves ineffective. love must be practiced in all three forms to be revolutionary and revolutionary love can only be practiced in community and so this is my invitation to you all the revolutionary love project has built a powerful form of formidable community in the last few years a coalition of artists and activists educators and faith leaders committed to showing up in our lives and our movement in twenty twenty and beyond with revolutionary love we are creating dialogues. hundreds across america we are hosting convenience we're building tools and curricula and a book that will come out next year we are mobilizing the vote i ask you to join us are you in. so i ask you to go to get your phones. to get your phone's

going to revolutionary love dot net. sign the declaration be with us stay with us as we build together. for here is the truth. here is the truth. the labor for justice last a lifetime. there is no end to the labor that's what i've learned. but hey i've learned that if we labor in love love for others love for opponents i love for ourselves. and we will last. i want to let slip his last. for some days we will be somebody's ancestors they will gather here in this room. and if we get this right they will inherit not our fear. but our bravery. by the way could you queue for thing thank you

>> hello and welcome to "focus on europe." we begin with the war that continues to ravage large parts of ukraine. in recent days, violence there has reached a new and even more shocking level. in the small town of bucha, close to the capital kyiv, russian troops appear to have brutally massacred innocent civilians. their remains were left literally scattered along the streets -- men, women, and children. the ukrainian government and many in the international community believe the atrocities are war crimes.