Sandy Chi Kim

“My friend Professor Melissa Harris-Perry once told me that after Obama’s election, she held up a picture of President Lyndon Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to her class. “Which one is Obama?” she asked her students. The students shouted, “King! King!” “No,” she said. “Obama is President Johnson. Obama is constrained by the office of the presidency. President Johnson could not deliver civil rights victories without Dr. King. The president needs a King. The president needs Kings, plural. We must be his Kings.”
― Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
― Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

“ancestral solidarity.” People of color survived oppression throughout our history through acts of solidarity. Shallow solidarity was based on the logic of exchange—You show up for me, and I will show up for you. But deep solidarity was rooted in recognition—I show up for you, because I see you as part of me. Your liberation is bound up in my own.”
― Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

“Love” is more than a feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving—a choice we make over and over again. If love is sweet labor, love can be taught, modeled, and practiced. This labor engages all our emotions. Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.”
― Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love