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This Fear Of Maleness That They Inspire Estranges Men From Every Female In Their Lives To Greater Or Lesser Degrees, And Men Feel The Loss. Ultimately, One Of The Emotional Costs Of Allegiance To Patriarchy Is To Be Seen As Unworthy Of Trust. If Women And Girls In Patriarchal Culture Are Taught To See Every Male, Including The Males With Whom We Are Intimate, As Potential Rapists And Murderers, Then We Cannot Offer Them Our Trust, And Without Trust There Is No Love.

-Bell Hooks

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This Fear Of Maleness

Bell Hooks

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This Fear Of Maleness That They Inspire Estranges Men From Every Female In Their Lives To Greater Or Lesser Degrees, And Men Feel The Loss. Ultimately, One Of The Emotional Costs Of Allegiance To Patriarchy Is To Be Seen As Unworthy Of Trust. If Women And Girls In Patriarchal Culture Are Taught To See Every Male, Including The Males With Whom We Are Intimate, As Potential Rapists And Murderers, Then We Cannot Offer Them Our Trust, And Without Trust There Is No Love.

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Beloved Community

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Even When People Capitalize My Name, I Don't Freak Out, Even Though That Would Not Be My Choice.

I Think Black People Need To Take Self-esteem Seriously.

For Black Folks, The Camera Provided A Means To Document A Reality That Could, If Necessary, Be Packed, Stored, Moved From Place To Place... [photography] Offered A Way To Contain Memories, To Overcome Loss, To Keep History.

I Think This Is What People Misunderstand About Martin Luther King Saying To Love Your Enemies. They Think He Was Just Using This Silly Little Phrase, But What He Meant Was That As Black Americans We Need To Let Our Anger Go, Because Holding On To It We Hold Ourselves Down. We Oppress Ourselves By Holding On To Anger.

Teaching Black Studies, I Find That Students Are Quick To Label A Black Person Who Has Grown Up In A Predominantly White Setting And Attended Similar Schools As "not Black Enough." ...our Concept Of Black Experience Has Been Too Narrow And Constricting.

All The Work I Do Is Built On A Foundation Of Loving-kindness. Love Illuminates Matters.

Many Spiritual Teachers - In Buddhism, In Islam - Have Talked About First-hand Experience Of The World As An Important Part Of The Path To Wisdom, To Enlightenment.

Why Is It So Difficult For Many White Folks To Understand That Racism Is Oppressive Not Because White Folks Have Prejudicial Feelings About Blacks (they Could Have Such Feelings And Leave Us Alone) But Because It Is A System That Promotes Domination And Subjugation?

Only Grown-ups Think That The Things Children Say Come Out Of Nowhere. We Know They Come From The Deepest Parts Of Ourselves.

All Too Often We Think Of Community In Terms Of Being With Folks Like Ourselves: The Same Class, Same Race, Same Ethnicity, Same Social Standing And The Like..i Think We Need To Be Wary: We Need To Work Against The Danger Of Evoking Something That We Don’t Challenge Ourselves To Actually Practice.

The Wounded Child Inside Many Females Is A Girl Who Was Taught From Early Childhood On That She Must Become Something Other Than Herself, Deny Her True Feelings, In Order To Attract And Please Others.

Class Is Rarely Talked About In The United States; Nowhere Is There A More Intense Silence About The Reality Of Class Differences Than In Educational Settings.

Patriarchy, Like Any System Of Domination (for Example, Racism), Relies On Socializing Everyone To Believe That In All Human Relations There Is An Inferior And A Superior Party, One Person Is Strong, The Other Weak, And That It Is Therefore Natural For The Powerful To Rule Over The Powerless. To Those Who Support Patriarchal Thinking, Maintaining Power And Control Is Acceptable By Whatever Means.

Schools For Love Do Not Exist. Everyone Assumes That We Will Know How To Love Instinctively. Despite Overwhelming Evidence To The Contrary, We Still Accept That The Family Is The Primary School For Love. Those Of Us Who Do Not Learn How To Love Among Family Are Expected To Experience Love In Romantic Relationships. However This Love Often Eludes Us.

I Think The Number One Thing Black Women And All Black People Should Be Paying Attention To Is Our Health.

I'm Such A Girl For The Living Room. I Really Like To Stay In My Nest And Not Move. I Travel In My Mind, And That That's A Rigorous State Of Journeying For Me. My Body Isn't That Interested In Moving From Place To Place.

We Don't Really Live In A Culture That Loves Boys Or Loves Children, And We Don't Encourage Boys To Be Whole.

Being Oppressed Means The Absence Of Choices

To Be Truly Visionary We Have To Root Our Imagination In Our Concrete Reality While Simultaneously Imagining Possibilities Beyond That Reality.

You Must Have Courage To Love, You Have To Have A Profound Will To Do What Is Right To Love, And It Does Not Come Easy.

If You're In A Domestic Situation Where The Man Is Violent, Patriarchy And Male Domination - Even Though You Understand It Intersectionally - You Focus, You Highlight That Dimension Of It, If That's What Is Needed To Change The Situation.

Had Middle Class Black Women Begun A Movement In Which They Had Labeled Themselves "oppressed," No One Would Have Taken Them Seriously.

African American

Both Men And Women Remain In Dysfunctional, Loveless Relationships When It Is Materially Opportune.

Individual Heterosexual Women Came To The Movement From Relationships Where Men Were Cruel, Unkind, Violent, Unfaithful. Many Of These Men Were Radical Thinkers Who Participated In Movements For Social Justice, Speaking Out On Behalf Of The Workers, The Poor, Speaking Out On Behalf Of Racial Justice. However When It Came To The Issue Of Gender They Were As Sexist As Their Conservative Cohorts.

Choosing To Be Honest Is The First Step In The Process Of Love. There Is No Practitioner Of Love Who Deceives. Once The Choice Has Been Made To Be Honest, Then The Next Step On Love's Path Is Communication.

The Significance Of Feminist Movement (when It Is Not Co-opted By Opportunistic, Reactionary Forces) Is That It Offers A New Ideological Meeting Ground For The Sexes, A Space For Criticism, Struggle, And Transformation.

To Love Well Is The Task In All Meaningful Relationships, Not Just Romantic Bonds.

Meaningful Relationship

Assumptions That Racism Is More Oppressive To Black Men Than Black Women, Then And Now ... Based On Acceptance Of Patriarchal Notions Of Masculinity.

Feminist Thinking Teaches Us All, Especially, How To Love Justice And Freedom In Ways That Foster And Affirm Life.

No Black Woman Writer In This Culture Can Write "too Much". Indeed, No Woman Writer Can Write "too Much"...no Woman Has Ever Written Enough.

..critically Intervene In A Way That Challenges And Changes.

Giving Generously In Romantic Relationships, And In All Other Bonds, Means Recognizing When The Other Person Needs Our Attention. Attention Is An Important Resource.

Knowing How To Be Solitary Is Central To The Art Of Loving. When We Can Be Alone, We Can Be With Others Without Using Them As A Means Of Escape.

Popular Escapist Fiction Enchants Adult Readers Without Challenging Them To Be Educated For Critical Consciousness.

I Thought About How We Need To Make Children Feel That There Are Times In Their Lives When They Need To Be Alone And Quiet And To Be Able To Accept Their Aloneness.

When We Face Pain In Relationships Our First Response Is Often To Sever Bonds Rather Than To Maintain Commitment.

All My Life I Have Longed To Have A Loving Relationship That Would Last A Lifetime.

Loving Relationships

It Is Crucial For The Future Of The Black Liberation Struggle That We Remain Ever Mindful That Ours Is A Shared Struggle, That We Are Each Other's Fate.

We Judge On The Basis Of What Somebody Looks Like, Skin Color, Whether We Think They're Beautiful Or Not. That Space On The Internet Allows You To Converse With Somebody With None Of Those Things Involved.

Remember, Care Is A Dimension Of Love, But Simply Giving Care Does Not Mean We Are Loving.

A Very Hurting Thing For Black Americans - To Feel That We Can't Love Our Enemies. People Forget What A Great Tradition We Have As African-americans In The Practice Of Forgiveness And Compassion. And If We Neglect That Tradition, We Suffer.

Since The Notion That We Should All Forsake Attachment To Race And/or Cultural Identity And Be “just Humans” Within The Framework Of White Supremacy Has Usually Meant That Subordinate Groups Must Surrender Their Identities, Beliefs, Values, And Assimilate By Adopting The Values And Beliefs Of Privileged-class Whites, Rather Than Promoting Racial Harmony This Thinking Has Created A Fierce Cultural Protectionism.

Justice Is Possible Without Equality, I Believe, Because Of Compassion And Understanding. If I Have Compassion, Then If I Have More Than You, Which Is Unequal, I Will Still Do The Just Thing By You.

I'm Tired Of The Naked, Raped, Beaten Black Woman Body. I Want To See An Image Of Black Femaleness That Alters Our Universe In Some Way.

The Classroom, With All Its Limitations, Remains A Location Of Possibility. In That Field Of Possibility We Have The Opportunity To Labor For Freedom, To Demand Of Ourselves And Our Comrades, An Openness Of Mind And Heart That Allows Us To Face Reality Even As We Collectively Imagine Ways To Move Beyond Boundaries, To Transgress. This Is Education As The Practice Of Freedom.

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