See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

“I was not angry with the woman. It was not personal. She believed she was a messenger of the moral universe: I did not belong. She had merely done her duty and tried to defeat the Devil that ensnared me. But the Devil’s voice was my own voice, and so the exorcism was really just an attempt to cast me out of my own body, to make me a stranger to myself.”

Kaur challenges a woman’s attempt to exorcise the devil from her body while she is a child. By providing her personal perspective on these events, Kaur makes an appeal to the Christian audience to not condemn individuals from differing religions. This woman’s behavior makes Kaur feel as if the woman is trying to remove her “self” from her body—religion is linked to ethnic and cultural identities, and forcing someone to convert often means giving up those other identities. This makes Kaur feel foreign in her body, culture, and identity.

“In the United States, white supremacy is intertwined with Christian supremacy, one an extension of the other. Any theology that teaches that God will torture the people in front of you in the afterlife creates the imaginative space for you to do so yourself on earth.”

Kaur points to the interconnectedness of white supremacy and Christian supremacy in the US, acknowledging the problematic nature of believing that any one race or religion is better than another. In the US, Christianity was used to justify chattel slavery when preachers used biblical passages to argue that Black people were inferior. A contemporary analog is George W. Bush comparing the War on Terror to a “crusade.” Kaur argues that Christian theology leaves room for Christians to torture people here on Earth because the expectation is that they will also be tortured in the afterlife. She argues for dismantling both white supremacy and Christian supremacy.

“Documentation determined which atrocities were remembered and which were forgotten, whose lives were deemed grievable and whose disposable, and whether the rest of the world intervened. I didn’t know how to stop the violence, but I knew we needed to document it for any kind of intervention to happen.”

Kaur knows that existing powers decide which brutalities are recorded and shared by the media. She knows violence against the Sikh community will not receive the same kind of attention as brutalities against white Christian communities. As such, she records as many of the post-9/11 hate crimes as she can. She does not know how to get justice for these people yet, but she knows what is happening is important for the historical record.

“But the FBI would report a 1,600 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes in the year that followed 9/11—a number that reflects only a fraction of the violence that actually occurred because so many incidents were not reported or classified as hate crimes at all.”

By stating facts, Kaur appeals to the readers’ logic (logos). She also draws attention to the fact that many hate crimes are not recorded because of the discordant relationship between communities of color and police forces across the nation. This adds another layer to the number cited.

“How can we presume to grieve people we never knew, people who don’t look like us or share the same history with us? Here is the answer: Grieve with those who loved them. Grieve with the living. That is the revolutionary act.”

Kaur calls on Americans to go and grieve with those who have lost someone to hate crimes, even when they are strangers. She says it is not necessary to have known the deceased individual personally. Rather, the willingness to grieve with others is valuable and can be revolutionary to a community. This is one of the ways the text acts as a manifesto, providing directions on how to change. This passage’s connection to the title, See No Stranger, reflects its importance.

“It is still hard for me to speak publicly about sexism in my community when we live in a nation that continues to see turbaned men as violent patriarchs. But any time I do, I find new chances to build solidarity, with women from different communities, with other Sikh women, and with men who are allies.”

Kaur acknowledges the challenge of addressing sexism within her community when Sikh men are targeted more than Sikh women because of their turbans. She notices, however, that when she does address sexism, it allows her to build new connections. In this way, she encourages readers to better understand the intersectionality of being a South Asian Sikh woman.

“What does it mean to be a warrior-sage for a new time? Who will you fight for? What will you risk? It begins with honoring the fight impulse in you. Think about what breaks your heart. Notice what it feels like to have your fists clench, your jaw close, your pulse quicken. Notice what it feels like to want to fight back. Honor that in yourself.”

Choosing to address the reader in second person, Kaur strives to have them listen to their inner voice. This counters some common narratives, which emphasize suppressing rage. While she doesn’t advocate for violence, Kaur acknowledges that race can be useful. If one listens to their body, they will be able to recognize what feels right and what feels wrong. In this way, she encourages readers to fight alongside marginalized communities.

“I was the first girl in my ancestral line whose parents told her she could become anything she wanted.”

Kaur draws attention to the changes made in just one generation regarding gender roles in her community. Her mother did not get to choose what she wanted to be. In this way, Kaur hints at how fast changes can happen and leaves readers wondering what might be possible.

“One possible cause for vaginismus was ‘sexual assault early in life.’ Oh. I had never called it that.”

Kaur realizes for the first time that she is a survivor of sexual assault. She had never let her mind refer to what happened to her as assault, but the experience took a physical toll on her body. She begins the journey to heal, which becomes an extended metaphor for the way change is only possible through honest communication and hard work.

“Deep listening is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear. 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.”

Kaur asks her readers to be better listeners. She says we must surrender ourselves to the stories of others, and at the same time, we should be prepared to be changed by what we hear. Listening is one of the skills she offers to combat racial and religious bias; it is the first step toward reconciliation and solidarity.

“We can have all the empathy in the world for a group of people and still participate in the structures and systems that oppress them.”

Kaur draws attention to systemic oppression and calls for readers to understand that there are many institutions that need to be dismantled or reimagined in order to achieve equality. She encourages readers to be more aware of what structures they are taking part in and examine whether those structures cause oppression. This expands the work from personal to political, as equality can’t be achieved by solely addressing interpersonal relationships.

“But the longer I spent listening to the stories of marginalized people, tending to their wounds, the more I heard a deeper longing -- for a future where we were all safe and secure in our bodies, free to pursue our dreams, where our social, political, and economic institutions supported not just our survival but our flourishing. We could resist with all our might and never deliver such a future. We needed to do more than resist. We needed to reimagine the world.”

Kaur expands on what it means to reimagine a more equal world. While she recognizes the importance of resisting existing oppression, she stresses that one needs to imagine a world in which everyone thrives instead of simply surviving. Without this radical imagination, change is not possible. She also acknowledges the longing of marginalized individuals to live in a world in which they can flourish.

“The founders crafted the U.S. Constitution to consolidate power for white Christian men of an elite class. The rest of us were not counted in ‘we the people.’ The law was designed to control the rest of us, not set us free.”

Kaur argues that the US Constitution never intended to empower anyone but white, male Christian landowners with the phrase “We the people”—the original document did not protect women, people of color, or practitioners of other faiths. While laws have changed over the centuries, Kaur stresses that the American legal system still largely benefits the ruling class and is used to suppress marginalized communities. New discriminatory policies emerged after 9/11, for example. She argues that we must fight to change laws that do not establish and protect equal rights.

“‘What does habeas corpus mean?’ Professor Fidell had asked in class. ‘Bring me the body!’ The right to file a writ of habeas corpus in order to contest your detention meant that the state must produce your body before the law. It must lift you up from the shadows in a courtroom where you are seen and heard by others. I thought of it as the most powerful spell.”

Kaur characterizes the writ of habeas corpus as a “powerful spell.” Through this metaphor, she exemplifies the power of this law, which helps make invisible people visible. Notably, the American military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, held prisoners without trial; while this violated American law, proponents of the practice justified it by saying the prison was not on American soil.

“Sikhs had something to teach America about how to respond to the violence of white nationalism, socially, politically, and spiritually. I saw the practices of revolutionary love at work—we wondered, grieved, and fought; we raged listened and reimagined the future.”

Kaur learned much after the Oak Creek massacre and notes that the people there embodied the facets of composed revolutionary love. They responded to hatred with love for one another. Contrasted with the earlier assertions about Christianity and the punitive nature of society, Kaur offers an alternative perspective through Sikhism.

“Representative Paul Ryan and other lawmakers would show up to offer condolences with words like ‘love’ on their lips—but they refused to support gun safety laws, curb hate crimes, or actively combat white nationalism. Their silence would become even more deadly during the Trump era.”

Kaur offers criticism against political representatives and lawmakers who refuse to make changes in the face of a massacre. She depicts this kind of “support” as a false attempt to satisfy voters. One of the book’s main arguments is that it’s not enough to ignore hate; without taking action against it, discriminatory ideology will spread, and more tragedies will occur.

“I wondered how many more of us had to die before the nation ‘knew’ who we were.”

Kaur exposes the irony in hate crimes targeting the Sikh community: They are being targeted because they look similar to Arab Muslims. She wonders how many people from her community will have to die before others will understand their identity. The emphasis is that none of them should have to die to be known or accepted.

“Perhaps what was truly new and revolutionary on the face of the planet was the notion of universal human dignity, that each person has inherent equal worth.”

As she observes the natural world and its violence, Kaur recognizes that equality is a fairly new concept. Placing equality in a historical context allows Kaur to emphasize hope for the future; in the long span of human existence, great strides have been made in the last few decades and centuries. This perspective allows one to view losses as temporary setbacks in the history of social progress.

“I had not been living in my pelvic floor for most of my life. I had told myself a story of damage from assault, vaginismus, and endometriosis, even after pain had passed.”

Kaur recognizes her disassociation from her pelvic floor because of both sexual assault and medical conditions. She notes that this disassociation continues even after she recovers from the physical pain, emphasizing the power of emotions over the body. Physical disassociation is common for survivors of trauma and those in marginalized communities who cannot make peace with a body society does not accept. Here, we see Kaur trying to overcome this type of disassociation.

“Now, after watching my mother forgive my grandmother, I felt a new desire to let go of the animosity I was still holding. Forgiveness appeared to me as a gift for myself at the end of a long, internal healing process.”

person forgiven. Through her experiences, she presents a model of healing and reconciliation for her readers to replicate in their lives. She encourages this type of closure for everyone, even for people like Rana Sodhi and his brother’s murderer. This reflects the broader theory of transformative justice, in which alternatives to punishment and incarceration are imagined.

“Love is sweet labor—fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving. A choice we make over and over again.”

Kaur continues to expand on the concept of love, this time through her extended metaphor of childbirth. For her, love is mostly composed of labor, and it can feel impossible in times of crisis. However, persevering with love is like reaching the end of labor; one gives birth to new possibilities by enduring, the same way children are born. Kaur conveys to her readers that love takes work. It is not simple, and it requires dedication.

“Here’s what I discovered about Wise Woman: Her voice is quiet. There is so much noise in my mind—the Little Critic but also the cacophony of noises from the outside world, an endless stream of breaking news and social media and other people’s thoughts. I have to be really quiet in order to hear her.”

Kaur argues for the value of turning inward and listening to one’s guiding voice. She recognizes that to do this, one must often shut out other noises from the outside world. This also emphasizes that the loudest and most self-aggrandizing voices are not necessarily correct; quiet wisdom should be valued instead.

“I believe that deep wisdom resides within each of us. Some call this voice by different sacred names – Spirit, God, Jesus, Allah, Om, Buddha-nature, Waheguru. Others think of this voice as the intuition one hears when in a calm state of mind […] Whatever name we choose, listening to our deepest wisdom requires disciplined practice.”

Kaur explores where an individual’s intuition comes from. She recognizes that for some, it is a spiritual voice. Whether readers identify their intuition as spiritual or not, she is confident that everyone has an internal voice worth listening to. While Kaur draws on Sikhism throughout the text, here she universalizes her message; anyone of any religion can tap into this wisdom.