Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

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See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur

10 reviews

t_m_loewenelofson's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

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meganpbell's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

This memoir astonished and altered me. Coming of age as an American Sikh in the aftermath of 9/11, Valarie Kaur’s dedication to making a difference and her extraordinary courage in the face of hate crimes, police brutality, and sexual assault are made only more remarkable by her resilient compassion toward those who’d harm her. Read this if you believe a better world takes both courage and kindness and you’d like to become more of both.

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beth_simmons's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

This book should be required reading at this moment in our society. Full of insight, hope, and honesty, Kaur's idea of revolutionary love and how we practice it is so engaging it needs more than one read-through. I led a discussion about it which was supposed to be a single one-hour session. Instead, we stretched it out over four sessions which all went well past the time allotted. It is just so full.

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ajaggers324's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

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sneaky_snake22's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

This is a book I will be revisiting for the rest of my life. It's beautiful and inspiring, I'm not a motherhood person nor l but even I can get on board with her metaphor. I absolutely loved this. The content is broken up in a way to allow you to pieces the information slowly, which is great since some of it is really heavy and emotional and you need that time to breathe. I am inspired and able to accept that there is a lot I'm heading from as I continue working to fight for racial and social justice. That I don't have to be everything, but simply use the gifts I have to move forward. I needed this book. And I like many people need it too.

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readalongwithnat's review against another edition

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5.0

Absolutely heart wrenching. Touched on so many topics but they were woven together so intricately.

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ar_singh's review

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

5.0

Tati Vao Ana Lagai. The hot winds cannot touch me.

This memoir was amazing! Kaur writing was poetic as it was deeply moving and inspiring. Her explanation of how she moves past trauma, hate and grief to find love, joy, acceptance and forgiveness will stay with me forever.

Breathe, push, inhale, exhale. Find wonder in those around you. Na Ko bairi Nahi Begana. I See no Stranger, I See no Enemy.

As a young Brown women, there are so many stories and experiences that Kaur went through that I felt on a deeply personal level. Her activism and dedication to her community and her work shows the strength and resilience, brown and black people have forged in the face of hate. And her wise words of wisdom and steady guide in her work Revolutionary love will continue to help me and I hope many others in facing the problems of today.

This memoir is one that I intent to return to. Time and time again. When I need advice, when I need guidance to find hope again.

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hollyd19's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

See No Stranger is a stunning memoir manifesto from activist Valerie Kaur. Chronicling her (very full) life up until now, Kaur shares about how her compassionate posture towards hate and despair are informed by her Sikh faith. Raised in California and largely radicalized by anti-Sikh hate crimes after 9/11, Kaur reflects on her own growth catalyzed by putting her body on the frontlines as an activist and storyteller.

Kaur is guided by the mantra: You are a part of me I do not yet know. She promotes wonder as a way through hate, going as far as to say “the failure to wonder is the beginning of violence.” She is admirably rooted in the teachings of her religion that emphasize caring robustly for humanity and intentionally positions its adherents as people who show up and help.

Something especially powerful about this particular memoir was the weaving of anecdotes with practices that Kaur has developed over the years through deep personal work both alone and with support of community. She humbly points out moments when she acted out of fear, rage, or hurt and described how she worked to uproot those tendencies. Kaur is most definitely someone I’d like to continue to learn from and think most everyone would benefit from reading her story.

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leweylibrary's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

This is a book that's going to stay with me and I'm going to need to sit with for a long time to really fully appreciate it's value in my life. The stories Valarie Kaur tells about her [absolutely awe inspiring] life show a side of life in America that I haven't thought about a lot until now. I love her concept of Revolutionary Love--it seems difficult to implement but totally worth it and game-changing once you do.

Quotes:

New horrors keep arising from old impulses. The past keeps bleeding into the present. No civilization in the world is exempt. But what is particular to America is that many who suffered enormous loss and destruction have had to do so alone, had to marshal language to tell the story, only to find that there was no one to hear it because their suffering contradicts the story that the nation keeps telling itself--the story of American exceptionalism. America is a beacon of light, the singular enforcer of truth. Our sorry of exceptionalism doesn't allow us to confront our past with open eyes. A nation that cannot see its own past cannot see the suffering it has caused, suffering that persists into the present. A nation that cannot see our suffering cannot grieve with us. A nation that cannot grieve with us cannot know us, and therefore cannot love us. (58)
This is not the dominant narrative of American history, but, if you look closely, you can see many stories of solidarity. In response to great violence or injustice, there are people who rush to bury the dead, cut down the lynching noose, or attend the memorials to say: not in my name. When people who have no obvious reason to love each other it come together to grieve, they can give birth to new relationships, even revolutions. (59)
... witnessing suffering does not necessarily lead to meaningful action. The credits roll; we go home or swipe the screen. We think that something has been accomplished because we are emotionally spent, but nothing has changed. We can have all the empathy in the world for a group of people and still participate in the struggles and systems that oppress them. We might believe we are listening, but we have journeyed only half the circle. We have drawn close to the story and lost ourselves in another's experience, but we haven't returned to ourselves and asked: what fits this demand of me? Is it the reckoning of my privilege? Is it an expansion of whose struggles connect with mine? What will I do differently now? (144)
"it's easy to love people who love you back," she [Her mother] said. "When somebody gives you pain, how do you love that person? That's the real test of love." (262)
America needs to reconcile itself and do the work of apology: to say to indigenous, black, and brown people, we take full ownership for what we did. To say, we owe you (ital) everything. To say, we see how harm runs through generations. To say, we own this legacy and will not harm you again. To promise the non-repetition of harm would require nothing less than transitioning the nation as a whole. It would mean retiring the old narrative about who we are--a city on a hill--and embracing a new narrative of an America longing to be born, a nation whose promised lies in the future, a nation we can only realize by doing the labor: reckoning with the past, reconciling with ourselves, restructuring our institutions, and letting those who have been most harmed be the ones to lead us through the transition. (271)
I don't know how this will end or how much worse it will get. But in such moments, I see glimpses of a nation waiting to be born, this society we aspire to be--in America that is multiracial, multi-faith, multi-gendered, and multicultural, a nation where power is shared and we strive to protect the wellness and dignity of every person and work to save our earth and our collective future. Each of us has a role in this long labor, no matter who is in the White House. That means when a voice in us says "I can't," Our most urgent task is to find the wisdom to stay in the fire. (288)

Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Islamophobia, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Sexism

Some quotes I love: New horrors keep arising from old impulses. The past keeps bleeding into the present. No civilization in the world is exempt. But what is particular to America is that many who suffered enormous loss and destruction have had to do so alone, had to marshal language to tell the story, only to find that there was no one to hear it because their suffering contradicts the story that the nation keeps telling itself--the story of American exceptionalism. (Ital) America is a beacon of light, the singular enforcer of truth. (End ital) Our sorry of exceptionalism doesn't allow us to confront our past with open eyes. A nation that cannot see its own past cannot see the suffering it has caused, suffering that persists into the present. A nation that cannot see our suffering cannot grieve with us. A nation that cannot grieve with us cannot know us, and therefore cannot love us. (58)

This is not the dominant narrative of American history, but, if you look closely, you can see many stories of solidarity. In response to great violence or injustice, there are people who rush to bury the dead, cut down the lynching noose, or attend the memorials to say: (ital) not in my name. When people who have no obvious reason to love each other it come together to grieve, they can give birth to new relationships, even revolutions. (59)

... witnessing suffering does not necessarily lead to meaningful action. The credits roll; we go home or swipe the screen. We think that something has been accomplished because we are emotionally spent, but nothing has changed. We can have all the empathy in the world for a group of people and still participate in the struggles and systems that oppress them. We might believe we are listening, but we have journeyed only half the circle. We have drawn close to the story and lost ourselves in another's experience, but we haven't returned to ourselves and asked: what fits this demand of me? Is it the reckoning of my privilege? Is it an expansion of whose struggles connect with mine? What will I do differently now? (144)

"it's easy to love people who love you back," she [Her mother] said. "When somebody gives you pain, how do you love that person? That's the real test of love." (262)

America needs to reconcile itself and do the work of apology: to say to indigenous, black, and brown people, we take full ownership for what we did. To say, we owe you (ital) everything. To say, we see how harm runs through generations. To say, we own this legacy and will not harm you again. To promise the non-repetition of harm would require nothing less than transitioning the nation as a whole. It would mean retiring the old narrative about who we are--a city on a hill--and embracing a new narrative of an America longing to be born, a nation whose promised lies in the future, a nation we can only realize by doing the labor: reckoning with the past, reconciling with ourselves, restructuring our institutions, and letting those who have been most harmed be the ones to lead us through the transition. (271)

And this one is my ultimate favorite:

I Don't know how this will end or how much worse it will get. But in such moments, I see glimpses of a nation waiting to be born, this society we aspire to be--in America that is multiracial, multi-faith, multi-gendered, and multicultural, a nation where power is shared and we strive to protect the wellness and dignity of every person and work to save our earth and our collective future. Each of us has a role in this long labor, no matter who is in the White House. That means when a voice in us says "I can't," Our most urgent task is to find the wisdom to stay in the fire. (288)

applesaucecreachur's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

A reflective and important memoir that challenges people to radically move beyond hate. The emphasis on wonder and self-love in a world dominated by hatred is difficult to swallow at times, but is backed up by the author’s explanation that anger is a protector of love, and therefore is something to be understood (though perhaps not always allowed). In my own life, I will try to choose wonder and self-love.

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