What is your name again, Arno?
Is it N-A-U-N-T? It is A-R-N-O.
Arno
Arno.
There are no other Arnos. I don't know any other Arnos
Right Ok
Arno, I don't know if you know anything about what we do.
I am unfamiliar
We have a YouTube-channel which is designed to teach people
who are totally new to Sikhism about the basics
for that reason we called it the Basics of Sikhi
- Awesome - Yes, so anybody can learn the basics
Tell me about yourself You got all these tattoos and stuff
Is there a history behind these? - Yes, I am actually
a former white supremacist.
In the late 80's and early 90's I was extremely active in
organizing, recruiting and leading hate groups
- Oh wow, - I was the founding member of the
same group that Wade Page belonged to.
Oh okay. I was also the lead singer
in a white power band called Centurion that sold 20,000 records
around the world - Right.
I was very popular. You will be surprised
that Wade Page wasn't a fan. - Wow.
In so many ways I used to be the man that he was, literally.
How did this come about? You are here today serving to unite.
You are taking pictures with a bunch of Sikhs.
I love Sikhs, seriously. I love that you are doing
the Basics of Sikhi because what we teach at Serve Unite really is
the idea of service to others. - Right.
The idea that we are one. The idea of Chardikala (Eternal optimism).
This is amazing. Where does this transformation come from?
For me, I am going to say from God. How did it happen, manifest itself?
I left in the mid-90's. So it has been a long time
that I run off and I left after a second friend of mine
was murdered in a street fight.
This is shortly after I became a single parent.
So it really struck me that death or prison was going to take me
away from my daughter. But I believe that as important as
those catalysts or events were, was the fact that throughout
my seven years involvement in hate groups, there were people who were openly hostile
to people I claim to hate, black people, Jewish people,
my lesbian supervisor, they treated me with kindness
despite my hostility. Every time that happened,
while it did not change me on the spot, it many cases it made me
more hostile at the time, not to them but I would leave them and indulge in
violence to try to put distance between myself and this thing
that would really confuse me. But those acts were all seeds
that stayed with me. They built a growing sense of doubt
to let me know that what I was doing was wrong
Right, because it did not make sense to hate people
who did not seem hate you back. - Right, exactly.
So if you react to hate with compassion then in the end it will prevail.
- Well, I absolutely believe that. This is what we teach in practice
at Serve 2 Unite being an ongoing response to the hate crime of the Gurdwara.
So it is founded as a response to what happened a few years ago.
Yes. Wow, I did not know that.
As of this year, we have been in schools for a year and a half.
We are now in ten Milwaukee area schools with over 500 students involved.
Wow. These are students from the inner city
to the suburbs and everyone in between. So we have black students, white students
Latino students, Asian students everybody getting together and
caring about each other as human beings. Very much living the principle of
there is one. - And the idea is to serve people?
Yes, exactly. Our kids get out in the communities
where they live and they try to help people.
An example of that is just last week at 36 in Lisbon
which is the core of Milwaukee's inner city.
It is a very violent place where people are really struggling.
One of our schools is there and fourth and fifth graders
from that school said there's too much violence in our community
we want to do something about it and they organized a peace walk
through the community which was two blocks deep by the time
we got everybody assembled and then it ended in a block party
in front of the school. Where we had hundreds of people
from the community all day sharing food, dancing, doing art projects and
enjoying each other's company. So in this very violent part of the city
our kids proved that there could be peace for one day.
And that change is a day at a time. You got to create that day of peace and
build upon it and our kids do that in the spirit of Chardikala (eternal optimism)
And in the spirit of we are one. - And optimism.
Yes absolutely. They are doing that as part of
an ongoing response to what happened at the Sikh temple.
Can you just imagine that thing that Micheal Page came from and now
what he has developed into? - Oh yes.
It is like the scene of that the moon has gone down, and the sun has come up
Exactly. It is completely opposite.
And we are very much doing this in a spirit of defiance.
- Yes, exactly. We are not going totolerate that.
We are going to do something even better. - As a former white supremacist, I know that
what we are doing is a white supremacist's worst nightmare
This is the last thing they would do. - Yes, because they want to
divide and spread hate. - They want to see Sikhs up in arms and
screaming at white people. They want white people afraid of
everybody else. That's what they want to see
- If you look at it from the point of view
even if Wade Michael Page did not know about Sikhs, you can see that
what he wanted was for us to react violently and to kill.
And the fact that many Sikhs in those days they reacted by giving food,
by being compassionate and forgiving. - Exactly.
It kind of threw people off like why are they not full of hatred.
because the first thought - I do not know how much you have learned
over the last couple of years - but the very first paragraph,
the first sayings of the Guru's are God is without fear and without hate.
- Wow.
In the very first line it says without fear and hate.
It means we cannot have fear
of anybody else and we cannot hate anybody else.
- That is beautiful. That is where we operate from.
We have to operate from the same thing, that we should not hate anybody and that
we should not fear anybody. - When you come from that foundation
it is really empowering. It is an incredible honour to help
take that forward and going forward 10 years from now
I see Serve 2 Unite all over the world. There will be tens of thousands,
hundred thousands of kids coming together.
That would not have happened if it was not for that.
So it is a model. And we are inspired by
the civil rights movement in the United States.
We are inspired by Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha,
Guru Nanak and Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him.
I mean all these amazing leaders throughout history have set
that example of responding to aggression with compassion and to be fearless.
That is what compassion is.
- Compassion is a key thing we need to build
Did you have Langar today, the free food?
I did and I love it.
The Langar is always my favorite part. I love Indian food.
- The Langar is always the favorite part of everybody.
And the Prashad as well. If you have the hot Prashad.
The idea of Langar, just to kind of let you know
because we put it in here. Is the idea that when you share a meal
with somebody then it cuts of that you are a stranger and
can have a meal. And it is that equality, no matter
if you are rich or poor or if you are of this cast or that caste
if you are black or white if you are a Sikh or Christian
you sit together and share a meal.
So it is like common bonds and breaking down those barriers.
And the idea also is access to food.
It is ok for me to say God cares about you
but if we have got food and we are not giving it
- Yes, then it just talks. Then we do not really care
about you. - Yes exactly.
It is the idea that we should be serving. Right, so you got that serving part and
it unites us like Langar. The other thing with it is
is the fact that we can come together and feed people
but it is the equality of each person to have that food.
So whether you are down on your luck you can have food.
Whether you want to experience sharing and caring,
you can go there and serve. Or if you want to experience equality
you can go there and eat. Right.
So all these things work together. - It is amazing, I love it.
And it has been going on for 500 years and I sometimes
look at that thing and I think Guru Ji you created something
that even now hardly exists in the West.
You know, you can find it everyday and every Gurdwara has free food.
It is totally unique.
- It is beautiful. And hopefully people can take away.
I think the Gurdwara here is getting involved
in a free food project, you know in a soup kitchen kind of thing.
They are very active with the Interfaith Council and
that has been another really amazing thing that has happened
since August 5th, is that Gurdwaras opened up and
went out into the community much more so than they had previously.
So now we are all getting to know eachother and
especially the city of Oak Creek. I mean this is like a very
middle-class predominantly white suburb that is a little bit conservative.
and not really the right place where you would think that this amazing bond
with a very different culture would happen but it has.
And there are people all over the city who have come to this event and
have come to the Gurdwara and will there be Tuesday.
A really amazing relationship was started on August 5th.
So as horrific as it was as much as we all miss our loved ones
Chardikala has happened. - Exactly, we are living that.
Brilliant, thank you for your time. - Thank you brother.
I am giving you one of these. Check us out on YouTube.
- Okay. - We got a whole bunch of videos on there.
You will be on there soon. - Ok, we will link to you guys
on our YouTube-channel. Ok that might be good.
Do you want a copy of my book? - Yes, what book is it?
A book about my story. - Yes, that would be great.
Ok thank you so much.