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

-Bell Hooks

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To Love Well Is

Bell Hooks

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

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Meaningful Relationship

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Feminist Education — The Feminist Classroom — Is And Should Be A Place Where There Is A Sense Of Struggle, Where There Is Visible Acknowledgment Of The Union Of Theory And Practice, Where We Work Together As Teachers And Students To Overcome The Estrangement And Alienation That Have Become So Much The Norm In The Contemporary University.

I Often Find It Easier To Be Teaching Or Giving To Others, And Often Struggle With The Place Of My Own Pleasure And Joy.

All Efforts At Self-transformation Challenge Us To Engage In On-going, Critical Self-examination And Reflection About Feminist Practice, And About How We Live In The World. This Individual Commitment, When Coupled With Engagement In Collective Discussion, Provides A Space For Critical Feedback Which Strengthens Our Efforts To Change And Make Ourselves Anew.

A Good Teacher Is Someone Who Can Help You To Get Back To A Teacher Within.

The Crisis Facing Men Is Not The Crisis Of Masculinity, It Is The Crisis Of Patriarchal Masculinity. Until We Make This Distinction Clear, Men Will Continue To Fear That Any Critique Of Patriarchy Represents A Threat.

I Think We Have To Talk About Educating The People For Critical Consciousness About What Anarchy Is.

Intersectionality Allow Us To Focus On What Is Most Important At A Given Point In Time.

Feminist Pedagogy Can Only Be Liberatory If It Is Truly Revolutionary Because The Mechanisms Of Appropriation Within White Supremacist, Capitalist Patriarchy Are Able To Co-opt With Tremendous Ease That Which Merely Appears Radical Or Subversive

America Is A Country That Would Rather Talk About Race Than Class.

The Practice Of Love Offers No Place Of Safety. We Risk Loss, Hurt, Pain. We Risk Being Acted Upon By Forces Outside Our Control.

When Men And Women Punish Each Other For Truth Telling, We Reinforce The Notion That Lies Are Better.

Telling The Truth

We Are Rarely Able To Interact Only With Folks Like Ourselves, Who Think As We Do. No Matter How Much Some Of Us Deny This Reality And Long For The Safety And Familiarity Of Sameness, Inclusive Ways Of Knowing And Living Offer Us The Only True Way To Emancipate Ourselves From The Divisions That Limit Our Minds And Imaginations.

It Is Important For This Country To Make Its People So Obsessed With Their Own Liberal Individualism That They Do Not Have Time To Think About A World Larger Than Self.

Contrary To What We May Have Been Taught To Think, Unnecessary And Unchosen Suffering Wounds Us But Need Not Scar Us For Life. It Does Mark Us. What We Allow The Mark Of Our Suffering To Become Is In Our Own Hands.

Feminism Is The Struggle To End Sexist Oppression. Its Aim Is Not To Benefit Solely Any Specific Group Of Women, Any Particular Race Or Class Of Women. It Does Not Privilege Women Over Men. It Has The Power To Transform Meaningfully All Our Lives

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.

If Black Women Stand Strong And Our Commitment Is To Ending Domination I Know That I'm Supporting Black Males, Black Children Male And Female Black Elderly Because The Bottom Line Is The Struggle To End Domination In All Its Forms.

A Distinction Must Be Made Between That Writing Which Enables Us To Hold On To Life Even As We Are Clinging To Old Hurts And Wounds And That Writing Which Offers To Us A Space Where We Are Able To Confront Reality In Such A Way That We Live More Fully. Such Writing Is Not An Anchor That We Mistakenly Cling To So As Not To Drown. It Is Writing That Truly Rescues, That Enables Us To Reach The Shore, To Recover.

I Think Stress Is Anything Going On In Our Lives That Impinges On Our Capacity To Have Optimum Well Being.

I Would Also Say That, In Practice, Many More Americans Are Anarchists Than Would Ever Use That Term.

Sexism Has Never Rendered Women Powerless. It Has Either Suppressed Their Strength Or Exploited It.

I Have Created A Life Style That Supports Contemplation, Service To Words.

Often Their Rage Erupts Because They Believe That All Ways Of Looking That Highlight Difference Subvert The Liberal Belief In A Universal Subjectivity (we Are All Just People) That They Think Will Make Racism Disappear. They Have A Deep Emotional Investment In The Myth Of Sameness Even As Their Actions Reflect The Primacy Of Whiteness As A Sign Informing Who They Are And How They Think.

Sadly, At A Time When So Much Sophisticated Cultural Criticism By Hip Intellectuals From Diverse Locations Extols A Vision Of Cultural Hybridity, Border Crossing, Subjectivity Constructed Out Of Plurality, The Vast Majority Of Folks In This Society Still Believe In A Notion Of Identity That Is Rooted In A Sense Of Essential Traits And Characteristics That Are Fixed And Static.

Let's Face It, War In Its Essence Is Another Form Of Capitalism.

To Begin By Always Thinking Of Love As An Action Rather Than A Feeling Is One Way In Which Anyone Using The Word In This Manner Automatically Assumes Accountability And Responsibility.

When We Concentrate On Photography, We Make It Possible To See The Walls Of Photographs In Black Homes As A Critical Intervention, A Disruption Of White Control Over Black Images.

Most Of Us Find It Difficult To Accept A Definition Of Love That Says We Are Never Loved In A Context Where There Is Abuse.

Definition Of Love

Yearning Is The Word That Best Describes A Common Psychological State Shared By Many Of Us, Cutting Across Boundaries Of Race, Class, Gender, And Sexual Practice.

I Think Our Culture Doesn't Recognize Passion, Because Real Passion Has The Power To Disrupt Boundaries.

Love Is A Combination Of Care, Commitment, Knowledge, Responsibility, Respect And Trust.

I Have Been Thinking About The Notion Of Perfect Love As Being Without Fear, And What That Means For Us In A World That's Becoming Increasingly Xenophobic, Tortured By Fundamentalism And Nationalism.

To Be Changed By Ideas Was Pure Pleasure. But To Learn Ideas That Ran Counter To Values And Beliefs Learned At Home Was To Place Oneself At Risk, To Enter The Danger Zone. Home Was The Place Where I Was Forced To Conform To Someone Else’s Image Of Who And What I Should Be. School Was The Place Where I Could Forget That Self And, Through Ideas, Reinvent Myself.

The Academy Is Not Paradise. But Learning Is A Place Where Paradise Can Be Created.

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

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.

To Teach In A Manner That Respects And Cares For The Souls Of Our Students Is Essential If We Are To Provide The Necessary Conditions Where Learning Can Most Deeply And Intimately Begin.

We Don't Hear Much From Revolutionary Feminists Who Are White Because They're Not Serving The Bourgeois Agenda Of The Status Quo.

There Is No Life To Be Found In Violence. Every Act Of Violence Brings Us Closer To Death. Whether It's The Mundane Violence We Do To Our Bodies By Overeating Toxic Food Or Drink Or The Extreme Violence Of Child Abuse, Domestic Warfare, Life-threatening Poverty, Addiction, Or State Terrorism.

Without Justice There Can Be No Love.

The Fierce Willingness To Repudiate Domination In A Holistic Manner Is The Starting Point For Progressive Cultural Revolution.

I Feel That I Have Many Real Students Whom I Have Not Met. Many Are In Cloisters And They Never Get Out. Others Are In Prison. But In Many Cases They Practice The Teachings Much Better Than Those Who Meet Me Every Day.

They Wanted Black Women To Conform To The Gender Norms Set By White Society. They Wanted To Be Recognized As 'men,' As Patriarchs, By Other Men, Including White Men. Yet They Could Not Assume This Position If Black Women Were Not Willing To Conform To Prevailing Sexist Gender Norms. Many Black Women Who Has Endured White-supremacist Patriarchal Domination During Slavery Did Not Want To Be Dominated By Black Men After Manumission.

The World Demands That You Work For It, Make Families, Provide, Take No Time To Listen To Your Own Heart Beating.

Fame Is Fun, Money Is Useful, Celebrity Can Be Exciting, But Finally Life Is About Optimal Well-being And How We Achieve That In Dominator Culture, In A Greedy Culture, In A Culture That Uses So Much Of The World’s Resources. How Do Men And Women, Boys And Girls, Live Lives Of Compassion, Justice And Love? And I Think That’s The Visionary Challenge For Feminism And All Other Progressive Movements For Social Change.

I Believe That It Is Impossible For Two Individuals Not Committed To Their Own And Each Other’s Well Being To Sustain A Healthy And Enduring Relationship.

Another Response To Racism Has Been The Establishment Of Unlearning Racism Workshops, Which Are Often Led By White Women. These Workshops Are Important, Yet They Tend To Focus Primarily On Cathartic Individual Psychological Personal Prejudice Without Stressing The Need For Corresponding Change In Political Commitment And Action. A Woman Who Attends An Unlearning Racism Workshop And Learns To Acknowledge That She Is Racist Is No Less A Threat Than One Who Does Not. Acknowledgment Of Racism Is Significant When It Leads To Transformation.

Writing And Performing Should Deepen The Meaning Of Words, Should Illuminate, Transfix And Transform.

Language Is Also A Place Of Struggle.

There Are Times When Personal Experience Keeps Us From Reaching The Mountain Top And So We Let It Go Because The Weight Of It Is Too Heavy. And Sometimes The Mountain Top Is Difficult To Reach With All Our Resources, Factual And Confessional, So We Are Just There, Collectively Grasping, Feeling The Limitations Of Knowledge, Longing Together, Yearning For A Way To Reach That Highest Point. Even This Yearning Is A Way To Know.

Sadly, Children's Passion For Thinking Often Ends When They Encounter A World That Seeks To Educate Them For Conformity And Obedience Only.

A Central Tenet Of Modern Feminist Thought Has Been The Assertion That "all Women Are Oppressed." This Assertion Implies That Women Share A Common Lot, That Factors Like Class, Race, Religion, Sexual Preference, Etc. Do Not Create A Diversity Of Experience That Determines The Extent To Which Sexism Will Be An Oppressive Force In The Lives Of Individual Women.

The Intellectual Tradition Of The West Is Very Individualistic. It's Not Community-based. The Intellectual Is Often Thought Of As A Person Who Is Alone And Cut Off From The World. So I Have Had To Practice Being Willing To Leave The Space Of My Study To Be In Community, To Work In Community, And To Be Changed By Community.

Within The New Self-help Books For Women, Patriarachy And Male Domination Are Rarely Identified As Forces That Lead To The Oppression, Exploitation, And Domination Of Women. Instead, These Books Suggest That Individual Relationships Between Men And Women Can Be Changed Solely By Women Making The Right Choices.

Reviewing The Literature On Love I Noticed How Few Writers, Male Or Female, Talk About The Impact Of Patriarchy, The Way In Which Male Domination Of Women And Children Stands In The Ways Of Love.

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

A Generous Heart Is Always Open, Always Ready To Receive Our Going And Coming. In The Midst Of Such Love We Need Never Fear Abandonment. This Is The Most Precious Gift True Love Offers - The Experience Of Knowing We Always Belong.

Patriarchy Has No Gender.

While Privacy Strengthens All Our Bonds, Secrecy Weakens And Damages Connection. Lerner Points Out That We Do Not Usually "know The Emotional Costs Of Keeping A Secret" Until The Truth Is Disclosed. Usually, Secrecy Involves Lying. And Lying Is Always The Setting For Potential Betrayal And Violation Of Trust.

Do Not Expect To Receive The Love From Someone Else You Do Not Give Yourself.

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.

The Practice Of Love Is The Most Powerful Antidote To The Politics Of Domination.

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

What We Do Is More Important Than What We Say Or What We Say We Believe.

I Guess I Wish We Could Talk About: What Does It Mean To Have A Politics Of Intersectionality That Also Privileges What Form Of Domination Is Most Oppressing Us At A Given Moment In Time.

The Fact Is That It Was Bourgeois White Feminism That I Was Reacting Against When I Stood In My First Women's Studies Classes And Said, "black Women Have Always Worked."

The First Act Of Violence That Patriarchy Demands Of Males Is Not Violence Toward Women. Instead Patriarchy Demands Of All Males That They Engage In Acts Of Psychic Self-mutilation, That They Kill Off The Emotional Parts Of Themselves. If An Individual Is Not Successful In Emotionally Crippling Himself, He Can Count On Patriarchal Men To Enact Rituals Of Power That Will Assault His Self-esteem.

Clearly, Commitment Is A Necessary Component For Creating Loving Relationships.

Loving Relationships

This Rule Of Silence Is Upheld When The Culture Refuses Everyone Easy Access Even To The Word “patriarchy.” Most Children Do Not Learn What To Call This System Of Institutionaliz Ed Gender Roles, So Rarely Do We Name It In Everyday Speech. This Silence Promotes Denial. And How Can We Organize To Challenge And Change A System That Cannot Be Named?

Like Many White Liberals, Ken Sees The Whiteness Of His Social Life As More An Accident Of Circumstance Than A Choice. He Would Welcome Greater Diversity In The Neighbourhood. However, He Does Not Consciously Do Enough Work Either In His Social Life Or In The Larger Community To Make That Diversity Possible.

I Think This Is Often Misunderstood In The West, Where People Feel That There Can Be No Justice Unless Everything Is The Same. This Is Part Of Why I Feel We Have To Relearn How We Think About Love, Because We Think About Love So Much In Terms Of The Self.

Since Anti-racist Individuals Did Not Control Mass Media, The Media Became The Primary Tool That Would Be Used And Is Still Used To Convince Black Viewers, And Everyone Else, Of Black Inferiority.

It Is Poetry That Changes Everything.

I Think The Invitation Offered The Non-black Reader Is To Join Us In This Expression Of Our Familiarity And Via That Joining, Come To Understand That When Black People Come Together To Celebrate And Rejoice In Black Critical Thinking, We Do So Not To Exclude Or To Separate, But To Participate More Fully In World Community. However, We Must First Be Able To Dialogue With One Another, To Give One Another Subject-to-subject Recognition That Is An Act Of Resistance That Is Part Of The Decolonizing, Anti-racist Process.

My Hope Emerges From Those Places Of Struggle Where I Witness Individuals Positively Transforming Their Lives And The World Around Them. Educating Is A Vocation Rooted In Hopefulness. As Teachers We Believe That Learning Is Possible, That Nothing Can Keep An Open Mind From Seeking After Knowledge And Finding A Way To Know.

We Must Continually Remind Students In The Classroom That Expression Of Different Opinions And Dissenting Ideas Affirms The Intellectual Process. We Should Forcefully Explain That Our Role Is Not To Teach Them To Think As We Do But Rather To Teach Them, By Example, The Importance Of Taking A Stance That Is Rooted In Rigorous Engagement With The Full Range Of Ideas About A Topic.

Any Woman Who Wishes To Be An Intellectual, To Write Non-fiction, To Deal With Theory, Faces A Lot Of Discrimination Coming Her Way And Perhaps Even Self-doubt Because There Aren't That Many Who've Gone Before You. And I Think That The Most Powerful Tool We Can Have Is To Be Clear About Our Intent. To Know What It Is We Want To Do Rather Than Going Into Institutions Thinking That The Institution Is Going To Frame For Us.

We Live In A World With Serious Class Complexes. It Is One Thing To Be A College Student With Loan Debts And Another Thing To Be Just Dirt Poor For Your Entire Life. The Challenge Is To Come Up With More Complex Understandings Of Where We Are, More Global Awareness Of What Connects Americans With What Is Happening With Suffering And Oppressed People All Around The World.

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

It's Interesting To Look At All The Aspects Where Everyday Americans, Many Of Whom Are Not College Educated, Are Thinking Deeply Now About Our Economic Structure.

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

Revolutionary Feminism Embraces Men Who Are Able To Change, Who Are Capable Of Responding Mutually In A Subject-to-subject Encounter Where Desire And Fulfillment Are In No Way Linked To Coercive Subjugation. This Feminist Vision Of The Sexual Imaginary Is The Space Few Men Seem Able To Enter.

I Think We Are Obsessed In The U.s. With The Personal, In Ways That Blind Us To More Important Issues Of Life. I Just Think If We Could Take All The Obsession With The Personal (inaudible), And Personal Judgment And Have People Be Concerned About The Environment, What A Different World We Would Live In.

Feminist Politics Aims To End Domination, To Free Us To Be Who We Are - To Live Lives Where We Love Justice, Where We Can Live In Peace. Feminism Is For Everybody.

If We Are Ever To Construct A Feminist Movement That Is Not Based On The Premise That Men And Women Are Always At War With One Another, Then We Must Be Willing To Acknowledge The Appropriateness Of Complex Critical Responses To Writing By Men Even If It Is Sexist. Clearly Women Can Learn From Writers Whose Work Is Sexist, Even Be Inspired By It, Because Sexism May Be Simply One Dimension Of That Work. Concurrently Fiercely Critiquing The Sexism Does Not Mean That One Does Not Value The Work.

Our Freedom Is Sweet. It Will Be Sweeter When We Are All Free.

We All May Have Prejudices, But We're Not All Part Of A System That Reinforces, Reinvents And Reaffirms Itself Every Day Of Our Lives, Systemically.

My Students Tell Me, We Don't Want To Love! We're Tired Of Being Loving! And I Say To Them, If You're Tired Of Being Loving, Then You Haven't Really Been Loving, Because When You Are Loving You Have More Strength.

Isolation And Loneliness Are Central Causes Of Depression And Despair.

Honesty And Openness Is Always The Foundation Of Insightful Dialogue.

Dare To Look At The Intersectionalities.

Intersectionality

Stereotypes Abound When There Is Distance. They Are An Invention, A Pretense That One Knows When The Steps That Would Make Real Knowing Possible Cannot Be Taken Or Are Not Allowed.

Whether We Learn How To Love Ourselves And Others Will Depend On The Presence Of A Loving Environment. Self-love Cannot Flourish In Isolation.

. . . No Black Woman Can Become An Intellectual Without Decolonizing Her Mind.

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.

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.

Changing How We See Images Is Clearly One Way To Change The World.

Changing The World

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.

Dare I Speak ,to Oppressed And Opressor In The Same Voice? Dare I Speak To You In A Language That Will Move Beyond The Boundaries Of Domination- A Language, That Will Not Bind You, Fence You In, Or Hold You? Language Is Also A Place Of Struggle. The Oppressed Struggle In Language To Recover Ourselves, To Reconcile, To Reunite, To Renew. Our Words Are Not Without Meaning, They Are An Action, A Resistance. Language Is Also A Place Of Struggle.

I Think Inequality Is In Our Minds. I Think This Is What We Learn Through Practice... The Bridge Of Illusion Must Be Shattered In Order For A Real Bridge To Be Constructed. One Of The Things We Learn Is That Inequality Is An Illusion.

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.

What's So Amazing About This Historical Moment Is That It Is Bringing Class To The Fore And We Have To Think About The Nature Of Work And Hierarchy.

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.

When Angels Speak Of Love They Tell Us It Is Only By Loving That We Enter An Earthly Paradise. They Tell Us Paradise Is Our Home And Love Our True Destiny.

I Think It's Crazy For Us To Think That People Don't Understand What's Being Foregrounded In Their Lives At A Given Point In Time.

Is It More Important That You, As A White Male, Read My Work And Learn From It, Or What You Call Me? I Think It's More Important That You Read My Work, Reflect On It, And Allow It To Transform Your Life And Your Thinking In Some Way.

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.

All Of Us In The Academy And In The Culture As A Whole Are Called To Renew Our Minds If We Are To Transform Educational Institutions-and Society-so That The Way We Live, Teach, And Work Can Reflect Our Joy In Cultural Diversity, Our Passion For Justice, And Our Love Of Freedom.

You Have To Trust That If You Are Calling My Name In A Way That Is Offensive To Me, I'm Going To Share It With You. But You Also Have To Know What Your Feelings Are Behind Calling Me "bell."

One Difference With The Political Writings, Whether About Feminism Or Class, Is That The Intent Is To Change How People Think Of A Certain Political Reality; Whereas With Cultural Criticism, The Goal Is To Illuminate Something That Is Already There.

Few People Who Are Hit Once By Someone They Love Respond In The Way They Might To A Singular Physical Assault By A Stranger.

None Of Us, Irrespective Of Our Sexual Preference And/or Practice, Imagine That We Can Have An Intimate Relationship With A Partner And Always Have Seamless Harmony. Indeed, Most Of Us Assume That Once The “honeymoon” Period Is Over Differences Will Emerge And Conflicts Will Happen. Positively, We Also Assume That We Will Be “safe“ In Those Moments; That Even If Voices Are Raised And Emotions Expressed Are Intense, There Will Not Be And Should Not Be Any Abuse Or Any Reason To Be Unsafe, And That The Will To Connect And Communicate Will Prevail.

Intimate Relationships

There Is Light In Darkness, You Just Have To Find It.

Once You Do Away With The Idea Of People As Fixed, Static Entities, Then You See That People Can Change, And There Is Hope.

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

I've Written 18 Books, Mostly Dealing With Issues Of Social Justice, Ending Racism, Feminism, And Cultural Criticism.

The Function Of Art Is To Do More Than Tell It Like It Is-it’s To Imagine What Is Possible.

Feminism Has Never Emerged From The Women Who Are Most Victimized By Sexist Oppression; Women Who Are Daily Beaten Down, Mentally, Physically, And Spiritually - Women Who Are Powerless To Change Their Condition In Life. They Are A Silent Majority.

It Is Necessary To Remember, As We Think Critically About Domination, That We All Have The Capacity To Act In Ways That Oppress, Dominate, Wound (whether Or Not That Power Is Institutionalized). It Is Necessary To Remember That It Is First The Potential Oppressor Within That We Must Resist – The Potential Victim Within That We Must Rescue – Otherwise We Cannot Hope For An End To Domination, For Liberation.

I Write These Words To Bear Witness To The Primacy Of Resistance Struggle In Any Situation Of Domination (even Within Family Life); To The Strength And Power That Emerges From Sustained Resistance And The Profound Conviction That These Forces Can Be Healing, Can Protect Us From Dehumanization And Despair.

I Feel Sad That We Have Allowed These Knee-jerk Feminists Who Want To Act Like It's A Struggle Against Men...but Again That's The Least Politically Developed Strand Of Feminism.

..acts Of Appropriation Are Part Of The Process By Which We Make Ourselves. Appropriating - Taking Something For One’s Own Use - Need Not Be Synonymous With Exploitation. This Is Especially True Of Cultural Appropriation. The “use” One Makes Of What Is Appropriated Is The Crucial Factor.

Today Masses Of Black Women In The U.s. Refuse To Acknowledge That They Have Much To Gain By Feminist Struggle. They Fear Feminism. They Have Stood In Place So Long That They Are Afraid To Move. They Fear Change. They Fear Losing What Little They Have.

I Began Writing A Book On Love Because I Felt That The United States Is Moving Away From Love.

If Only One Party In The Relationship Is Working To Create Love, To Create The Space Of Emotional Connection, The Dominator Model Remains In Place And The Relationship Just Becomes A Site For Continuous Power Struggle.

One Of The Greatest Difficulties The Left Faces In Reaching Out To Masses Of People In America Is Its Profound Disrespect Of Spirituality And Religious Life…people On The Left Need To Acknowledge – We Need To Grapple With – The Question Of Religion.

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

But Love Is Really More Of An Interactive Process. It's About What We Do Not Just What We Feel. It's A Verb, Not A Noun.

Like Desire, Language Disrupts, Refuses To Be Contained Within Boundaries.

The Challenge These Days, Is To Be Somewhere, To Belong To Some Particular Place, Invest Oneself In It, Draw Strength And Courage From It, To Dwell In A Community.

As Females In A Patriarchal Culture, We Were Not Slaves Of Love; Most Of Us Were And Are Slaves Of Longing-- Yearning For A Master Who Will Set Us Free And Claim Us Because We Cannot Claim Ourselves

To Truly Love We Must Learn To Mix Various Ingredients - Care, Affection, Recognition, Respect, Commitment, And Trust, As Well As Honest And Open Communication.

The True Teacher Is Within Us. A Good Teacher Is Someone Who Can Help You To Go Back And Touch The True Teacher Within, Because You Already Have The Insight Within You.

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.

Writing Is My Passion. It Is A Way To Experience The Ecstatic. The Root Understanding Of The Word Ecstasy—“to Stand Outside”—comes To Me In Those Moments When I Am Immersed So Deeply In The Act Of Thinking And Writing That Everything Else, Even Flesh, Falls Away.

For Me, Forgiveness And Compassion Are Always Linked: How Do We Hold People Accountable For Wrongdoing And Yet At The Same Time Remain In Touch With Their Humanity Enough To Believe In Their Capacity To Be Transformed?

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

Imagine Living In A World Where There Is No Domination, Where Females And Males Are Not Alike Or Even Always Equal, But Where A Vision Of Mutuality Is The Ethos Shaping Our Interaction.

We Often Cause Ourselves Suffering By Wanting Only To Live In A World Of Valleys, A World Without Struggle And Difficulty, A World That Is Flat, Plain, Consistent.

My Focus Has Always Been On The Work - That Work Being Critical Thinking And Writing. I Am Always Doing That. That's Where I Am, Wherever I Am. Critical Thinking And Writing As My Heartbeat.

I Feel Like There Is Always Something Trying To Pull Us Back Into Sleep, That There Is This Sort Of Seductive Quality In All The Hedonistic Pleasures That Pull On Us.

My Idea Of A Delicious Time Is To Read A Book That Is Wonderful. But The Ruling Passion Of My Life Is Being A Seeker After Truth And The Divine.

A Central Theme Of All About Love Is That From Childhood Into Adulthood We Are Often Taught Misguided And False Assumptions About The Nature Of Love. Perhaps The Most Common False Assumption About Love Is That Love Means We Will Not Be Challenged Or Changed.

The Most Basic Activism We Can Have In Our Lives Is To Live Consciously In A Nation Living In Fantasies. Living Consciously Is Living With A Core Of Healthy Self-esteem. You Will Face Reality, You Will Not Delude Yourself.

No Other Group In America Has So Had Their Identity Socialized Out Of Existence As Have Black Women... When Black People Are Talked About The Focus Tends To Be On Black Men; And When Women Are Talked About The Focus Tends To Be On White Women.

Loving Friendships Provide Us With A Space To Experience The Joy Of Community In A Relationship Where We Learn To Process All Our Issues, To Cope With Differences And Conflict While Staying Connected.

Even The Wealthiest Professional Woman Can Be "brought Down" By Being In A Relationship Where She Longs To Be Loved And Is Consistently Lied To. To The Degree That She Trusts Her Male Companion, Lying And Other Forms Of Betrayal Will Most Likely Shatter Her Self-confidence And Self-esteem.

I Believe That This Nation Can Only Heal From The Wounds Of Racism If We All Begin To Love Blackness. And By That I Don't Mean That We Love Only That Which Is Best Within Us, But That We're Also Able To Love That Which Is Faltering, Which Is Wounded, Which Is Contradictory, Incomplete.

The Struggle To End Sexist Oppression That Focuses On Destroying The Cultural Basis For Such Domination Strengthens Other Liberation Struggles. Individuals Who Fight For The Eradication Of Sexism Without Struggles To End Racism Or Classism Undermine Their Own Efforts. Individuals Who Fight For The Eradication Of Racism Or Classism While Supporting Sexist Oppression Are Helping To Maintain The Cultural Basis Of All Forms Of Group Oppression.

It's Really Important To Have Life Strategies And Part Of That Is Sort Of Knowing Where You Want To Go So You Can Have A Map That Helps You To Get There. And The Traditional Way Tells Us Oh We Get Into School And Someone Else Advises Us, Helps Us, But That Often Does Not Work For African Americans Female And Male. Because What Works For The Dominant Culture Often Does Not Work For Us.

African American

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?

One Of The Major Differences I See In The Political Climate Today Is That There Is Less Collective Support For Coming To Critical Consciousness – In Communities, In Institutions, Among Friends.

I'm Lucky. I Think It's Good That I Have A Body Of Work That Addresses Different Things In Different Ways.

It Is A Distortion Of The Notion Of Romantic Love To Want To See Obedience As The Quintessential Expression Of Respect.

Most Of Us Did Not Learn When We Were Young That Our Capacity To Be Self-loving Would Be Shaped By The Work We Do And Whether That Work Enhances Our Well-being.

If We Want A Beloved Community, We Must Stand For Justice.

Beloved Community

Feminism As A Theoretical Enterprise Is Approached Differently By Black Women Depending On Where We Are. There Are More Reformist Black Women Who Tend To Use The Phrase "black Feminism".

Within A Capitalist Consumer Society, The Cult Of Personality Has The Power To Subsume Ideas, To Make The Person, The Personality Into The Product And Not The Work Itself.

Cult Of Personality

Hip-hop Is Diverse. But The White, Capitalist Producers And Distributors Of Hip-hop Are Most Interested In The Hip-hip That Is Misogynist, That Is Black-hating, That Is Pugilistic, That Is To Say All About Fighting And War And Killing And Gangsterism.

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.

When Women And Men Understand That Working To Eradicate Patriarchal Domination Is A Struggle Rooted In The Longing To Make A World Where Everyone Can Live Fully And Freely, Then We Know Our Work To Be A Gesture Of Love. Let Us Draw Upon That Love To Heighten Our Awareness, Deepen Our Compassion, Intensify Our Courage And Strengthen Our Commitment.

The One Person Who Will Never Leave Us, Whom We Will Never Lose, Is Ourself. Learning To Love Our Female Selves Is Where Our Search For Love Must Begin.

Searching For Love

I Celebrate Teaching That Enables Transgressions - A Movement Against And Beyond Boundaries. It Is That Movement Which Makes Education The Practice Of Freedom.

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.

The Rage Of The Oppressed Is Never The Same As The Rage Of The Privileged.

...move From Emphasis On Personal Lifestyle Issues Toward Creating Political Paradigms And Radical Models Of Social Change That Emphasize Collective As Well As Individual Change.

When I Write Provocative Social And Cultural Criticism That Causes Readers To Stretch Their Minds, To Think Beyond Set Paradigms, I Think Of That Work As Love In Action. While It May Challenge, Disturb And At Times Even Frighten Or Enrage Readers, Love Is Always The Place Where I Begin And End.

Privilege Is Not In And Of Itself Bad; What Matters Is What We Do With Privilege. I Want To Live In A World Where All Women Have Access To Education, And All Women Can Earn Phd’s, If They So Desire. Privilege Does Not Have To Be Negative, But We Have To Share Our Resources And Take Direction About How To Use Our Privilege In Ways That Empower Those Who Lack It.

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.

I Think We Have To Choose, What Are The Issues That Really Matter? We Have To Trust That.

White Women And Black Men Have It Both Ways. They Can Act As Oppressor Or ... And Oppression Of Others.

I Don't Have Issues Around How I'm Identified.

Feminism Is A Struggle To End Sexist Oppression. Therefore, It Is Necessarily A Struggle To Eradicate The Ideology Of Domination That Permeates Western Culture On Various Levels.

Western Culture

Writing And The Hope Of Writing Pulls Me Back From The Edges Of Despair. I Believe Insanity And Despair Are At Times One And The Same.

If I Do Not Speak In A Language That Can Be Understood There Is Little Chance For A Dialogue.

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

Professors Rarely Speak Of The Place Of Eros Or The Erotic In Our Classrooms. Trained In The Philosophical Context Of Western Metaphysical Dualism, Many Of Us Have Accepted The Notion That There Is A Split Between The Body And The Mind. Believing This, Individuals Enter The Classroom To Teach As Though Only The Mind Is Present, And Not The Body.

Since We Live In A Society That Promotes Faddism And Temporary Superficial Adaptation Of Different Values, We Are Easily Convinced That Changes Have Occurred In Arenas Where There Has Been Little Or No Change.

I Feel That My Environment Reflects My Belief In The Grace And Art And Elegance Of Living Simply.

We Have To Constantly Critique Imperialist White Supremacist Patriarchal Culture Because It Is Normalized By Mass Media And Rendered Unproblematic.

To Me, A Woman Can't Be A Feminist Just Because She Is A Woman. She Is A Feminist Because She Begins To Divest Herself Of Sexist Ways Of Thinking And Revolutionizes Her Consciousness.

My Work Is Mostly Influenced By The Concrete Circumstances Of Our Daily Lives.

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

Abuse And Neglect Negate Love. Care And Affirmation, The Opposite Of Abuse And Humiliation, Are The Foundation Of Love. No One Can Rightfully Claim To Be Loving When Behaving Abusively.

Dominator Culture Has Tried To Keep Us All Afraid, To Make Us Choose Safety Instead Of Risk, Sameness Instead Of Diversity. Moving Through That Fear, Finding Out What Connects Us, Revelling In Our Differences; This Is The Process That Brings Us Closer, That Gives Us A World Of Shared Values, Of Meaningful Community.

The Political Core Of Any Movement For Freedom In The Society Has To Have The Political Imperative To Protect Free Speech.

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

Why Is It That Many Contemporary Male Thinkers, Especially Men Of Color, Repudiate The Imperialist Legacy Of Columbus But Affirm Dimensions Of That Legacy By Their Refusal To Repudiate Patriarchy?

The Greatest Movement For Social Justice Our Country Has Ever Known Is The Civil Rights Movement And It Was Totally Rooted In A Love Ethic.

If Anything I Think Postmodernism Has The Least Impact On My Work.

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

I Can Be Critical Of Beyoncé And Yet Also Appreciate Aspects Of Her Power And Representation. I Can Especially Critique The Way White Supremacist Aesthetics More Often Than Not Informs Her Presentation Of Self And Yet Still Acknowledge Her Beauty.

Shaming Is One Of The Deepest Tools Of Imperialist, White Supremacist, Capitalist Patriarchy Because Shame Produces Trauma And Trauma Often Produces Paralysis.

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

Meaningful Relationship

Women Have Endeavored To Guide Men To Love Because Patriarchal Thinking Has Sanctioned This Work Even As It Has Undermined It By Teaching Men To Refuse Guidance...a Useful Gift All Love's Practitioners Can Give Is The Offering Of Forgiveness. It Not Only Allows Us To Move Away From Blame, From Seeing Others As The Cause Of Our Sustained Lovelessness, But It Enables Us To Experience Agency, To Know We Can Be Responsible For Giving And Finding Love.

Feminist Effort To End Patriarchal Domination Should Be Of Primary Concern Precisely Because It Insists On The Eradication Of Exploitation And Oppression In The Family Context And In All Other Intimate Relationships. It Is That Political Movement Which Most Radically Addresses The Person – The Personal – Citing The Need For The Transformation Of Self, Of Relationships, So That We Might Be Better Able To Act In A Revolutionary Manner, Challenging And Resisting Domination, Transforming The World Outside The Self.

Intimate Relationships

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.

To Counter The Fixation On A Rhetoric Of Victimhood, Black Folks Must Engage In A Discourse Of Self-determination.

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.

If You Do Not Know What You Feel, Then It Is Difficult To Choose Love; It Is Better To Fall. Then You Do Not Have To Be Responsible For Your Actions.

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James Goldsmith

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