Ep059: #GoodAncestor Valarie Kaur, author of ‘See No Stranger’

In this episode, I speak with best-selling author, lawyer, filmmaker, educator, and civil rights leader, Valarie Kaur.

Valarie Kaur’s debut book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love is our Good Ancestor Book Club selection for the month of November 2021.

Valarie Kaur is a renowned civil rights leader, lawyer, best-selling author, award-winning filmmaker, educator, innovator, and celebrated prophetic voice. She leads the Revolutionary Love Project to reclaim love as a force for justice. Valarie burst into American consciousness in the wake of the 2016 election when her Watch Night Service address went viral with 40 million views worldwide. Her question “Is this the darkness of the tomb – or the darkness of the womb?” reframed the political moment and became a mantra for people fighting for change.

In the last twenty years, Valarie has won policy change on multiple fronts – hate crimes, racial profiling, immigration detention, solitary confinement, Internet freedom, and more. She founded Groundswell Movement, Faithful Internet, and the Yale Visual Law Project to inspire and equip advocates at the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and justice.

Valarie has been a regular TV commentator on MSNBC and contributor to CNN, NPR, PBS, the Hill, Huffington Post, and the Washington Post. A daughter of Sikh farmers in California’s heartland, Valarie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School. Valarie’s debut book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, was released in 2020 and expands on her “blockbuster” TED Talk.