On Friday morning, Pardeep Kaleka shared his story of loss and “forgiveness after hate”. On August 5th, 2012, his religious community was attacked when a white supremacist opened fire on a crowd of worshippers, murdering 7 and wounding four. That day at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Pardeep lost his father in a terror attack.
The loss robbed his family of a loving father and husband who will “never come home”. In a quest to heal...
Pardeep reached out to an unlikely person in the community, Arno Michaelis. As part of his presentation, Pardeep shared a video he made with Arno, a founding member of one of the largest white supremacists hate groups in the country, located in Milwaukee, WI.
At sixteen Arno was an angry and violent alcoholic who “wanted to make people angry”. His White Supremacist ideology was rooted in “that white people were different than everybody else, superior to everybody else, but at the same time threatened by the presence of everyone else”. At one point he realized the flaws in his thinking, and in 1994 he “renounced white supremacy”.
Arno was devastated to see the news of the shooting, feeling he had something to do with it. In many ways, he felt he “set the stage for this man to come into being.”
Pardeep and Arno met at a local restaurant to start the conversation and share their life stories. From this meeting Pardeep and Arno decided that they were going to “Help Heal”. Since, they have shared the message of togetherness through the Serve 2 Unite program.
Serve 2 Unite “Makes the practice of peace an attractive and valuable way of life, transforming schools and communities via fearless creativity and compassion, in interdependent partnership with local & global peace efforts”. Pardeep is also involved in The Forgiveness Project, where collections of “shared stories from both victims/survivors and perpetrators of crime and conflict who have rebuilt their lives following hurt and trauma”.
If you would like more information on either of these two programs, search Pardeep Kaleka on the web or YouTube.
Pardeep and Arno thank you for sharing your stories and mission to making this a more loving peaceful world.
