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Love: The best tool for combating hate

By Rana Sodhi
Updated 1404 GMT (2204 HKT) September 15, 2016

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Remembering Wisconsin temple shooting 01:18

Story highlights
Rana Sodhi lost two of his of brothers to acts
of hate
Rana Sodhi: The only way to combat further
bigotry and senseless violence is to deploy
relentless love and optimism

Editor's Note: Rana Sodhi is a Sikh community leader and advocate

who lives with his wife and children in Phoenix, Arizona. The opinions
expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) On September 11, I mourned for the thousands

killed in the terrorist attacks that struck our nation 15
years ago.
Today, I mourn for my sibling, whose life was also taken

far too early by the hands of hatred. My brother Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered in Arizona on
September 15, 2001. He was the first victim of a hate crime in the aftermath of the terrorist
attacks on September 11. The man who murdered him, and who is now serving life in prison for
that crime, called himself a patriot. Less than a year later, my brother Sukhpal was shot in the
back and killed while driving a taxi. (Though it was never investigated as a hate crime, my family
suspects otherwise.)
Like me, my brothers wore turbans as part of our Sikh
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faith. Our turbans represent our commitment to love,

equality and justice. These values serve us in our faith
and also as Americans. However, since September 11,
our turbans have marked us as targets for hate. The
threat of violence is now a daily part of our lives as Sikh
Americans, just as it is for our Muslim brothers and
Rana Sodhi

sisters.
After the deaths of my brothers, I had a choice: to allow

my fear and anger to consume me or to hear the call to love.

I chose love.
My Sikh faith teaches me to live in the spirit of "chardi kala," relentless love and optimism even in
the face of suffering and injustice. I have discovered that love can save us from despair and
inspire us to live a life of service and social action.
America needs the ethic of love now more than ever.
This election season, we have seen an alarming
escalation of hate and bigotry in our nation -- on our
airwaves, in our streets, in our schools and online. I
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believe the Sikh spirit of revolutionary love and optimism

can offer our fellow Americans a source of hope in an era
of mass violence.
A gas station memorial to one of
Sodhi's slain brothers.

It begins with hearing our story.

The Sikh story in America began more than 125 years
ago. The first Sikhs arrived on the West Coast as farmers
and laborers at the turn of the century, searching for the
American dream. Many of them faced racial
discrimination and a legal system that denied them
citizenship on the basis of their skin color. But they still
believed in the promise of America. In recent decades,
families like mine settled here to escape religious

Related Article: After 9/11, turbans made

persecution in India. Sadly, our turbans have always

Sikhs targets

made us the target for racism, even in our home country.

But the terrorist attacks on September 11 ushered in a

new reality. Since then, we routinely face school bullying, employment discrimination and racial
profiling. Today, Sikhs, along with our Muslim brothers and sisters, are disproportionately more
likely to be targets of hate crimes than we were before that fateful day.
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We have been tested over and over. In August 2012, a decade after my brother Sukhpal was
killed, a white supremacist entered a Sikh house of worship in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, on a
Sunday morning and opened fire. He killed six people, people who looked exactly like my
brothers.

While the horror of this mass shooting devastated us, my

family and community refused the narrative of
victimhood. Since then, we have used online platforms to
tell our story and broadcast our message of love and
optimism. In this spirit, we have stood in solidarity with
other communities, especially in the wake of the mass
shootings at a black church in Charleston, South
Related Video: Volunteers help temple
mourners cope 01:43

Carolina, and gay nightclub in Orlando.

To be sure, love is not enough without action. It's not
enough to feel love in your heart for your neighbors. We

need the kind of love that inspires us to stand up against bigotry in all forms: in school, at the
workplace, online, at the kitchen table and in the voting booth.
My family's story is told in the documentary film "Divided We Fall," re-released this month by the
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The Sikh Coalition and Revolutionary Love Project, to spark conversations on campuses and
communities across the nation. The goal is to hold at least 100 film screenings and dialogues on
how to combat hate with love this election season.
The stakes have never been higher.
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After my brother died, we hung a single handmade sign

over the doorway of his gas station: EVIL TRIUMPHS
WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO NOTHING.
As we witness the most vitriolic election cycle in modern
American history, too many have been emboldened to

act on their hate. Now it's up to the rest of us to act on our love.
Rana Sodhi is a Sikh community leader and advocate who lives with his wife and children in Phoenix, Arizona. The
opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

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