The Gift of our Wounds: A Sikh and a Former White Supremacist Find Forgiveness After Hate / Arno Michaelis and Pardeep Singh Kaleka

Can you imagine living a life as a white supremacist? Stewing in hatred for people you have never met, that you have never gotten to know? Creating music that spreads that hate hoping to create a good future for your children? Believing that a white world void of the diversity of many types of people is how we should live?

Can you imagine going to your Gurudwara (house of worship) on a Sunday morning only to be stopped by police because there has been a nearby shooting? Finding that the shooting was in your Gurudwara and your father is there and your mother is there and you can't get there. Panic is setting in and you cannot learn what it is going on?

Arno was that former skinhead and when he heard about the shooting he just hoped that he wasn't responsible for recruiting the shooter. Pardeep was that Sikh who soon learned that his father was killed. Later they meet each other and forged a way to move forward together through their pain in order to create a more peaceful, harmonious world. Together they created an organization that promotes caring, kindness, and mutual respect. 

This is their story.

(You can find this book on the shelves at South or Nashua Public Library. It is also available through NPL's Hoopla.)