During a prayer walk at the LA Federal Building in solidarity with immigrant families facing ICE raids, Valarie Kaur delivers a speech rooted in Sikh tradition—invoking the 9th Guru Tegh Bahadur, who made his body a shield against imperial oppression 350 years ago. She reframes courage not as a calculated action but as a choice of the heart, asking both ICE agents and the community a single question: "Who do you want to be in the story?" The refrain "We will come with flowers" becomes a commitment to nonviolent, persistent resistance until all are free.
What Does the Guru Tegh Bahadur Story Teach About Protection?
Kaur opens her speech at the Federal Building by recounting a story from Sikh history that took place 350 years ago in Punjab. A young boy named Gobind lived in the foothills of the Himalayas when 500 men arrived at his father's door, fleeing an emperor who had terrorized their lands, separated families, and imprisoned anyone who resisted. The boy asked his father—the great sage warrior Guru Tegh Bahadur—whether their suffering would end. His father replied in Punjabi, "jai koi vadi kurbani vaive," meaning "only if someone makes a great sacrifice." When the boy asked who else could make that sacrifice, his father stood before the refugees and declared: "The next time imperial armies come for you, tell them to come for me first!" He made his body a shield for others.
This historical moment—this year celebrated by Sikhs worldwide—reveals a central principle: when people are in harm's way, the role of a spiritual community is to make their bodies a shield. Kaur uses this teaching to connect the refugees arriving at Guru Tegh Bahadur's door to the immigrant families being detained and separated in present-day Los Angeles. The 9th Guru becomes the "Srisht Di Chadhar"—the shield of humanity—not because he defeated enemies, but because he taught a way of seeing: no stranger exists; their children are our children; we risk ourselves for each other.
How Does Courage Differ From Calculation?
Rather than framing the prayer walk as a strategic action, Kaur distinguishes courage from calculation. "Courage is not a calculation of the mind," she says. "Courage is a choice of the heart." This distinction matters. The mind calculates risk, weighs outcomes, estimates success. The heart, in her frame, chooses to act regardless of outcome. She names the community as present at the Federal Building because they have chosen courage—they are choosing to be brave with their love, to claim the detained people as part of themselves.
This reframing redirects the conversation away from "Will this protest work?" toward "What kind of person do I want to be?" In doing so, Kaur shifts the locus of power from external results to internal integrity. Whether ICE policies change or not becomes secondary to the question of whether one acts in alignment with one's deepest values. The crowd gathered with flowers is present not because they calculated a certain victory, but because love demanded it.
Who Is the Speech Actually Addressed To?
Midway through her remarks, Kaur turns directly to the DHS agents and ICE officers: "So to you—our brothers, soldiers, agents, officers—who do you want to be in this moment in history? How will the child in your life remember you?" This is a deliberate move. Rather than demonize or dismiss the officers, Kaur invites them into the same moral question the community faces. She acknowledges a truth: "You did not take this job to go to war with your own people."
By naming them as "brothers" and "our brothers," Kaur extends the circle of the beloved community even to those enforcing immigration detention. She asks what courage might look like for them—what it might mean to choose differently, knowing it might require sacrifice. She does not demand compliance; she offers invitation. This approach reflects the Sikh principle of seeing no stranger, extended even to adversaries. It is a radical gesture: the people being detained and the people detaining them are both held within a shared humanity, both called to examine their choices.
What Is the Significance of the Flowers?
The refrain "We will come with flowers" appears eight times in the final movement of Kaur's speech, building in intensity. This is not metaphorical softness; it is a specific reference to the death of Guru Tegh Bahadur. A few months after he stood before the emperor on behalf of the oppressed, his nine-year-old son—the boy Gobind, who would become the 10th Guru—received his father's severed head on a bed of flowers. From trauma, a sacred image: the flower bed.
Kaur's commitment to "come with flowers" is thus layered. It signals both beauty and sacrifice, both love and the willingness to endure harm. It is a nonviolent practice rooted in spiritual tradition, not in passivity or weakness. The flowers are a promise to return, to persist, to be present as long as people are caged. "We will keep coming with flowers as long as our loved ones are held in cages." The repetition is incantatory—a vow, a spell, a rhythm that builds collective commitment.
How Does Revolutionary Love Frame the Immigration Crisis?
Throughout the speech, Kaur's framework of "revolutionary love" (referenced in the YouTube description and her larger body of work) redefines how to respond to state violence. Rather than accepting the binary of either capitulation or armed resistance, she proposes a third path: love as the organizing principle of collective action. This love is not sentimental; it is grounded in the body's willingness to be present, to show up, to risk, to see the detained people as family and the officers as human beings capable of choice.
Revolutionary love, as she presents it, asks: What does it mean to love in the face of empire? To love people being torn from their families? To love the officers enforcing those separations, inviting them to a different choice? This both-and logic—holding fierce commitment to the detained people's freedom while extending humanity to those causing harm—is difficult and demands spiritual grounding. The Sikh tradition provides that grounding: a 9th Guru who made his body a shield, a teaching of seeing no stranger, a practice of flowers.
What Question Does the Speech Pose to the Listener?
The central question Kaur asks is not procedural but existential: "The question is not what will you do? The question is, who will you be in the story?" This question assumes that history is not inevitable, that each person has a role to play, and that how one plays that role—the character one embodies—is the primary moral choice. It is not "Can we stop ICE raids?" but "In the midst of ICE raids, who am I choosing to become?"
This reframing does not dismiss concrete outcomes; it grounds action in something deeper than strategy. It asks: Are you going to be a person who watches? A person who calculates risk and decides it is too great? A person who shows up with flowers? A person who offers soldiers an invitation to choose differently? The answer determines not just what happens next, but who you are now.
Where to go from here
For those moved by this speech, Valarie Kaur's broader body of work on revolutionary love—available through her newsletter at revolutionarylove.org—explores the spiritual practices, historical teachings, and community organizing that ground this approach. Her Instagram and TikTok (@valariekaur) offer ongoing reflection on how to live and act in alignment with love during crisis. Those seeking to understand the Sikh theological foundations of her work might explore the teaching of Guru Tegh Bahadur and the concept of seva (selfless service) and shaheedi (martyrdom in defense of justice). For immigrant rights advocates, the speech models how to center spiritual tradition and moral imagination in political action, rather than letting strategy and calculation alone determine response. Finally, for those asking how to speak across lines of conflict—how to address adversaries with humanity—this speech offers a template: name the humanity in your opponent, ask them to examine their own choices, extend them the possibility of transformation.
