While the story of an Indian techie being shot dead in Kansas, United States have sent shockwaves across the country, this powerful speech on the rights of immigrants and hater-crimes is going viral for all the right reasons. Earlier this month, lawyer and civil rights activist, Valarie Kaur made an extremely thought-provoking speech in a bid to do away with the forces that create a divide and how there is still hope.
Even though, she made the speech before United States President Donald Trump, was sworn in as the President, it still makes sense considering the current situation. In her speech, Valarie recalled how her grandfather was put behind the bars by the immigration officials only because he was wearing a turban when he landed in America from India 103 years ago.
“When he landed on American shores, the immigration officials saw his dark skin, his tall turban worn as a part of his Sikh faith and saw him not a brother but as foreign, as suspect, and threw him behind bars where he languished for months,” she said adding that it was in fact, a white man who helped her grandfather get out of the prison.
“When we see these bodies (of Indians, Africans, Trans people), not as brothers and sister, then it becomes easier to bully them, to rape them, to allow policies that neglect them, that incarcerate them, that kill them,” she says in her speech. However, she still believes that there was still some hope and things could get better.
. “What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb but the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead? But a country that is waiting to be born. What if the story of America is one long labor?. We can choose to fight for our communities in a way that does not mirror the hate and vitriol we oppose. We can make an oath to enter this new era with Revolutionary Love,” Valarie affirmed.
Her speech that has received millions of views and thousand of shares was also shared by numerous people including AR Rahman and Raza Rumi.
You watch the speech here:
