What Revolutionary Love Tells Us About Grieving Together
An important message from Valerie Kaur
Earlier today I received an email that I found to be incredibly beautiful. Valerie Kaur is unquestionably one of the most brilliant, powerful voices I’ve ever read. Her focus is on revolutionary love, or what it looks like to have the courage and the strength to love one another across divides and painful moments.
Her work has been a keystone of my own passions for years, and I wanted to share with you all a beautiful email she sent in the wake of the devastating shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday. I know it is tempting to look away, and to become numb to the violence. Valerie provides a beautiful model for what it actually looks like to hold this pain, to help ourselves and each other heal, and to move forward.
She also included a form she made to submit love letters to the survivors at the center, which she will be personally delivering next week. I think this is incredibly beautiful and was eager to submit my own messages of love.
To all my muslim readers, I grieve with you deeply this week. Through the screen here, I want you to know that I see you in your pain, your fear, your grief, and your anger. I am here with you.
I have built a platform of over 20,000 people looking for community, hope, and action. It is such a gift to be able to use this platform to amplify the voices of brilliant people that deserve to be heard by as many people as possible. As soon as I read this article, I reached out to Valerie for permission to republish her newsletter in its entirety, and she generously agreed. I know it can be frightening and difficult to engage with this subject matter, but I truly trust Valerie to have the grace and wisdom to hold us through it. What follows are exclusively Valerie’s own words & work, not mine.
If you want to learn more about her work, you should start with my favorite book of hers, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love
You can also support her work with a donation:
My Love Letter to You After San Diego
by Valerie Kaur
Beloved family:
On Monday, two gunmen opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego and killed three people before taking their own lives. One was a security guard who died protecting the 140 children inside. The mass shooting is being investigated as a hate crime linked to white supremacist extremism. The community is deep mourning.
Let’s show them they are not alone.
Write a message of love and solidarity to the children of the Islamic Center of San Diego. I will hand-deliver your letters to the mosque next Friday.
Within a few days, the news cycle will move on from this shooting. And the painful process of healing will begin. Your messages of love and support will be bound a book as a gift for the children’s school — so that in the hard days ahead, they know they are never, never alone.
You can write a message to the children. Or to the parents and grown-ups there. It can be a long or just a couple lines. It can be typed or handwritten. If you are a teacher or parent, you can invite your kids to write messages too. Forward this email. Gather and write together. We carry each other through the impossible.
If you are able, make a donation to support the survivors and families here.
The Revolutionary Love Project delivered tens of thousands of prayers and letters of love and solidarity in the wake of the mass shootings at the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and mosques in Christchurch. Let us pour our love into San Diego now.
My Love Letter to You
To our Muslim family: We see you. We love you. We grieve with you. We stand with you.
To all of us who are hurting: You are not alone. The terror of this mass shooting is reverberating in our hearts across the country.
Houses of worship are sanctuaries — where we feel safe, where we raise our children and build community, where we sing and pray, where we find refuge and peace.
One of the deadliest attacks on a house of worship was the mass shooting by a white supremacist in the Sikh gurdwara of Oak Creek, WI in 2012. I documented the aftermath for my community. I will never forget the look of agony in the children who survived, or the steady voices of our elders as they repaired the broken glass and ripped out the blood-soaked carpets with their own hands, singing and praying.
All these years later, we are still mourning our loved ones— just as we will forever mourn the three heroes who died on Monday:
Amin Abdullah, 51, father of eight, the security guard who sacrificed his life to protect the 200 children inside the mosque. His final act was to call to warn the teachers and put the school on lock-down. He is credited for saving many lives.
Nadir Awad, 57, husband of a teacher at the school, the neighbor who ran towards the mosque when he heard gunfire and was killed while trying to distract and delay the shooters.
Mansour Kaziha, 78, the beloved elder and caretaker who served the community since the mosque was founded in the 1980s. All three are being honored as martyrs for giving their lives to slow the gunmen and save lives.
We hold in our hearts the teachers who kept the children safe, and the parents who waited through hours of terror. We mourn with the families whose loved ones are not coming home. And we stand with resolve and conviction to tell the truth about the climate of hate in America today.
This shooting is not an “isolated incident.”
This act of violence comes at a time of extreme anti-Muslim hate from the federal government — hate speech, extremist propaganda, and authoritarian assaults on immigrants and people of color.
For the last 25 years since 9/11, Muslim, Sikh and Arab communities have endured enormous white nationalist rage. Loved ones killed and beaten in hate crimes. Mosques and gurdwaras routinely vandalized. Surveillance, detentions, deportations, travel bans and family separations. Forever wars and genocidal campaigns abroad keep fueling the hate at home — and those who profit from it have overtaken the highest seats of power.
Now our children, born long after 9/11, grow up in a nation more dangerous for them than it was for us. And a new generation has been trained in white supremacist hate — the two gunmen in San Diego were teenagers who found each other online and shared “broad hate.”
I grieve for all that we have lost. I rage that the violence goes on and on. And I search for signs of hope…
When I look back at the last 25 years, in the wake of every act of hate violence, there were people who did what the nation as a whole did not — they showed up to grieve with us, to offer flowers and letters and donations, to listen to our needs, to share our stories, and to organize with us.
Anytime people who have no obvious reason to love one another come together to grieve, they build new relationships—they power movements.
May we be brave with our love now —
Honor your grief. It is a sign of how deeply you love.
Honor your rage. It carries information and energy. It connects you with the power to fight for matters to you.
Take time to breathe. Your fatigue means that you are awake to the gravity of suffering. Rest. Reach out to someone who can breathe with you. Only then —
Let’s push together. Choose one brave thing. Scroll down for ways to show up for San Diego.
In heartbreak and resolve,
Valarie
P.S. Send your love letter by midnight next Wednesday!
Write Your Love Letter
We are collecting love letters from across the country and around the world and will hand-deliver them in San Diego next week. Your message of love and solidarity can bring hope, healing, and courage. It can be long or just a few sentences. Even after the news cycle moves on, families and children can read your letters and know that they are not alone.
Type your message in the form. Or take a picture of a handwritten letter or artwork and upload it.
Address your letter to children at the school. Or to the parents and grown-ups in the community.
You can choose to give your name and contact, or leave it anonymous.
Make your submissions by midnight on Wednesday, May 27th.
Take Action for San Diego
1) Make a donation to support the Victims and Families: Make a donation to the Official ICSD Victim & Family Support Fund to help provide direct assistance to the families impacted by this tragedy. Donate here.
2) Grieve in community:
Attend local vigils and stand in solidarity in your community.
You are invited to a community vigil tonight in San Diego — Wednesday, May 20 | 6:30 PM in front of Geisel library on UCSD’s campus. We will continue to share other local vigils as we hear about them on our social channels.
Reach out to loved ones, neighbors, family, and friends in the Muslim community with love and support.
Build a community altar using this toolkit from Black Feminist Futures.
3) Learn about and combat anti-Muslim bigotry:
What is Islam (The Pluralism Project at Harvard University)
What is Islamophobia (Facing History & Ourselves)
How do online networks spread Islamophobia (The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University — podcast with Dr Marc Owen Jones, expert on disinformation and digital authoritarianism)
Countering and Dismantling Islamophobia (Toolkit by the Institute for Social Policy & Understanding)
How can we create school cultures that counter Islamophobia (Southern Poverty Law Center)
4) Talk to the young ones in your life to help them process: The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) recommends:
Talking to Children About Tragedies (American Academy of Pediatrics)
Helping Kids After a Shooting (American School Counselor Association)
Explaining the News to Our Kids (Common Sense Media)
Helping Children Cope with Frightening News (Child Mind Institute)
Helping Children Cope with Terrorism: Tips for Families and Educators (National Association of School Psychologists)
Recipe for Resilience
The Revolutionary Love Project envisions a world where love is a public ethic and shared practice in our lives and politics. We generate stories, tools, and thought leadership to equip people to practice the ethic of love in the fight for social justice.
Thank you for starting this!