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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.

-Bell Hooks

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When We Concentrate On

Bell Hooks

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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.

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To Indoctrinate Boys Into The Rules Of Patriarchy, We Force Them To Feel Pain And To Deny Their Feelings.

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.

When We Are More Energized By The Practice Of Blaming Than We Are By Efforts To Create Transformation, We Not Only Cannot Find Relief From Suffering, We Are Creating The Conditions That Help Keep Us Stuck In The Status Quo

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

Changing The World

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

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.

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.

In A Culture Of Domination, Preoccupation With Victimage Is Inevitable.

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.

Fluidity Means That Our Black Identities Are Constantly Changing As We Respond To Circumstances In Our Families And Communities Of Origin, And As We Interact With A Wider World.

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.

Hope Is Essential To Any Political Struggle For Radical Change When The Overall Social Climate Promotes Disillusionment And Despair.

In Our Culture Privacy Is Often Confused With Secrecy. Open, Honest, Truth-telling Individuals Value Privacy. We All Need Spaces Where We Can Be Alone With Thoughts And Feelings - Where We Can Experience Healthy Psychological Autonomy And Can Choose To Share When We Want To. Keeping Secrets Is Usually About Power, About Hiding And Concealing Information.

Keeping Secrets

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.

Commitment To Truth Telling Lays The Groundwork For The Openness And Honesty That Is The Heartbeat Of Love.

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.

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.

Dare To Look At The Intersectionalities.

Intersectionality

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

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.

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.

The Word "love" Is Most Often Defined As A Noun, Yet Al The More Astute Theorists Of Love Acknowledge That We Would All Love Better If We Used It As A Verb.

Imagine How Much Easier It Would Be For Us To Learn How To Love If We Began With A Shared Definition.

Yesterday I Was Thinking About The Whole Idea Of Genius And Creative People, And The Notion That If You Create Some Magical Art, Somehow That Exempts You From Having To Pay Attention To The Small Things.

What's Really Sad Is That So Many Young Women Between The Ages Of 16 And 25 Are Ignorant And They Already Believe That Women Get The Same Pay As Men. They Don't Even Really Understand That Equality Hasn't Happened With The Pay Force.

The World Would Be A Paradise Of Peace And Justice If Global Citizens Shared A Common Definition Of Love Which Would Guide Our Thoughts And Action.

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.

What We Cannot Imagine Cannot Come Into Being.

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.

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.

When We Choose To Love, We Choose To Move Against Fear, Against Alienation And Separation. The Choice To Love Is A Choice To Connect, To Find Ourselves In The Other.

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

I Do Get A Little Pissed At People Who Write Me And Want Me To Do Things, And Spell My Name Wrong.

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.

When I Think About The Auto-industry And How It Was One Of The Industries That Brought All Of These Black Men From The South To Michigan And Other Places To Make More Money Than They Could Ever Make In The Cotton Fields Or The Agricultural World Of The South... What's Happening Now Is All Of That Is Closing Down, And We Know That It's Going To Reopen In Southern Places, Focusing On Mexican And Other Migrant Workers To Come And Work Cheaply And Get None Of The Benefits.

Part Of Why I Have Started Writing About Love Is Feeling That Our Culture Is Forgetting What Martin Luther King Taught. We Name More And More Streets And Schools After Him But That's Almost Irrelevant, Because What Is To Be Remembered Is That Strength To Love.

Sometimes People Try To Destroy You, Precisely Because They Recognize Your Power - Not Because They Don't See It, But Because They See It And They Don't Want It To Exist.

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.

Time And Time Again When I Talk To Individuals About Approaching Love With Will And Intentionality, I Hear The Fear Expressed That This Will Bring An End To Romance. This Is Simply Not So. Approaching Romantic Love From Foundation Of Care, Knowledge, And Respect Actually Intensifies Romance

As All Advocates Of Feminist Politics Know Most People Do Not Understand Sexism Or If They Do They Think It Is Not A Problem. Masses Of People Think That Feminism Is Always And Only About Women Seeking To Be Equal To Men. And A Huge Majority Of These Folks Think Feminism Is Anti-male. Their Misunderstanding Of Feminist Politics Reflects The Reality That Most Folks Learn About Feminism From Patriarchal Mass Media.

Only Love Can Heal The Wounds Of The Past. However, The Intensity Of Our Woundedness Often Leads To A Closing Of The Heart, Making It Impossible For Us To Give Or Receive The Love That Is Given To Us.

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

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

Contrary To What Some Folks Would Have Us Believe, It Is Not Tragic, Even If Undesirable, For A Person To Leave A Liberal Arts Education Not Having Read Major Works From This Canon. Their Lives Are Not Ending. And The Exciting Dimension Of Knowledge Is That We Can Learn A Work Without Formally Studying It. If A Student Graduates Without Reading Shakespeare And Then Reads Or Studies This Work Later, It Does Not Delegitimize Whatever Formal Course Of Study That Was Completed.

... The Outcome Of The Clarence Thomas Hearings And His Subsequent Appointment To The Supreme Court Shows How Misguided, Narrow Notions Of Racial Solidarity That Suppress Dissent And Critique Can Lead Black Folks To Support Individuals Who Will Not Protect Their Rights.

To The Extent That We Live In A Postmodern World And It Shapes The Concrete Circumstances Of Our Daily Lives, I Would Say Postmodernism Affects My Work Or Influences My Work.

Even The Most Subjected Person Has Moments Of Rage And Resentment So Intense That They Respond, They Act Against. There Is An Inner Uprising That Leads To Rebellion, However Short- Lived. It May Be Only Momentary But It Takes Place. That Space Within Oneself Where Resistance Is Possible Remains.

You Are Not Going To Destroy This Imperialist White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy By Creating Your Own Version Of It.

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

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.

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.

I Grew Up In The Midst Of Poverty But Every Black Kid That I Knew Could Read And Write. We Have To Talk About The Fact That We Cannot Educate For Critical Consciousness If We Have A Group Of People Who Cannot Access Fanon, Cabral, Or Audre Lorde Because They Can’t Read Or Write. How Did Malcolm X Radicalize His Consciousness? He Did It Through Books. If You Deprive Working-class And Poor Black People Of Access To Reading And Writing, You Are Making Them That Much Farther Removed From Being A Class That Can Engage In Revolutionary Resistance.

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.

The Wounded Heart Learns Self-love By First Overcoming Low Self-esteem.

I Always Tell My Students That Malcolm X Came Both To His Spirituality And To His Consciousness As A Thinker When He Had Solitude To Read. Unfortunately, Tragically, Like So Many Young Black Males, That Solitude Only Came In Prison.

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

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

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.

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

Meaningful Relationship

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beloved Community

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.

In 2014, When Hillary Clinton Was Not Yet Running For President, I Stated That I Was Not In Agreement With Her Politics. More Recently, When Asked My Thoughts About Hillary Clinton During A Public Conversation With Gloria Steinem, I Stated, "she Embodies The Very Best Of Imperialist White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy, But That Doesn't Mean That We Shouldn't Vote For Her."

. . .there Is An Element Of Play That Is Almost Ritualistic In Black Folk Life. It Serves To Mediate The Tensions, Stress, And Pain Of Constant Exploitation And Oppression.

If We Give Our Children Sound Self-love, They Will Be Able To Deal With Whatever Life Puts Before Them.

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

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.

To Live Fixated On The Future Is To Engage In Psychological Denial. It Is A Form Of Psychic Violence That Prepares Us To Accept The Violence Needed To Ensure The Maintenance Of Imperialist, Future-oriented Society.

I Am Passionate About Everything In My Life--first And Foremost, Passionate About Ideas. And That's A Dangerous Person To Be In This Society, Not Just Because I'm A Woman, But Because It's Such A Fundamentally Anti-intellectual, Anti-critical Thinking Society. --bell Hooks

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

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

Death Is With You All The Time; You Get Deeper In It As You Move Towards It, But It's Not Unfamiliar To You. It's Always Been There, So What Becomes Unfamiliar To You When You Pass Away From The Moment Is Really Life.

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

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.

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.

It Is Poetry That Changes Everything.

All Too Often Women Believe It Is A Sign Of Commitment, An Expression Of Love, To Endure Unkindness Or Cruelty, To Forgive And Forget. In Actuality, When We Love Rightly We Know That The Healthy, Loving Response To Cruelty And Abuse Is Putting Ourselves Out Of Harm's Way.

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.

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.

The Time Has Come To Tell The Truth. Again. There Is No Love Without Justice. Men And Women Who Cannot Be Just Deny Themselves And Everyone They Choose To Be Intimate With The Freedom To Know Mutual Love. If We Remain Unable To Imagine A World Where Love Can Be Recognized As A Unifying Principle That Can Lead Us To Seek And Use Power Wisely, Then We Will Remain Wedded To A Culture Of Domination That Requires Us To Choose Power Over Love.

I'm So Disturbed When My Women Students Behave As Though They Can Only Read Women, Or Black Students Behave As Though They Can Only Read Blacks, Or White Students Behave As Though They Can Only Identify With A White Writer.

Solidarity Is Not The Same As Support. To Experience Solidarity, We Must Have A Community Of Interests, Shared Beliefs And Goals Around Which To Unite, To Build Sisterhood. Support Can Be Occasional. It Can Be Given And Just As Easily Withdrawn. Solidarity Requires Sustained, Ongoing Commitment.

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.

Black Males Who Refuse Categorization Are Rare, For The Price Of Visibility In The Contemporary World Of White Supremacy Is That Black Identity Be Defined In Relation To The Stereotype Whether By Embodying It Or Seeking To Be Other Than It…negative Stereotypes About The Nature Of Black Masculinity Continue To Overdetermine The Identities Black Males Are Allowed To Fashion For Themselves.

... Privacy Is ... Connected To A Politics Of Domination.

It Is Important And Vital Is To Keep That Education For Critical Consciousness Around Intersectionalities, So That People Are Able To Not Focus On One Thing And Blame One Group, But Be Able To Look Holistically At The Way Intersectionality Informs All Of Us: Whiteness, Gender, Sexual Preferences, Etc. Only Then Can We Have A Realistic Handle On The Political And Cultural World We Live Within.

I Will Not Have My Life Narrowed Down. I Will Not Bow Down To Somebody Else's Whim Or To Someone Else's Ignorance.

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.

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.

Black Women Control The World. We Are Through Being Discriminated Against.

All Our Silences In The Face Of Racist Assault Are Acts Of Complicity.

Honesty And Openness Is Always The Foundation Of Insightful Dialogue.

In Our Young Minds Houses Belonged To Women Were Their Special Domain, Not As Property, But As Places Where All That Truly Mattered In Life Took Place - The Warmth And Comfort Of Shelter, The Feeding Of Our Bodies, The Nurturing Of Our Souls. There We Learned Dignity, Integrity Of Being; There We Learned To Have Faith. The Folks Who Made This Life Possible, Who Were Our Primary Guides And Teachers, Were Black Women.

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

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.

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

I Think The Women's Movement Has Had A Major Impact On Everybody's Lives In Our Nation And In The World As A Whole.

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.

I Want There To Be A Place In The World Where People Can Engage In One Another’s Differences In A Way That Is Redemptive, Full Of Hope And Possibility. Not This “in Order To Love You, I Must Make You Something Else”. That’s What Domination Is All About, That In Order To Be Close To You, I Must Possess You, Remake And Recast You.

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.

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.

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.

To Build Community Requires Vigilant Awareness Of The Work We Must Continually Do To Undermine All The Socialization That Leads Us To Behave In Ways That Perpetuate Domination.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Still Think It's Important For People To Have A Sharp, Ongoing Critique Of Marriage In Patriarchal Society — Because Once You Marry Within A Society That Remains Patriarchal, No Matter How Alternative You Want To Be Within Your Unit, There Is Still A Culture Outside You That Will Impose Many, Many Values On You Whether You Want Them To Or Not.

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

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.

Of All The Definitions Of Love That Abound In Our Universe, A Special Favorite Of Mine Is... “the Will To Extend One's Self For The Purpose Of Nurturing One's Own Or Another's Spiritual Growth.”

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.

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

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.

Love Does Have The Power To Redeem But Only If We Are Ready For Redemption. Love Saves Us Only If We Want To Be Saved.

As More People Of Color Raise Our Consciousness And Refuse To Be Pitted Against One Another, The Forces Of Neo-colonial White Supremacist Domination Must Work Harder To Divide And Conquer.

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.

The White Worker Who Has Been Displaced At General Motors Has More In Common With The Displaced Black Worker Than Those Larger White Ceo's, And Those Wall Street People Who Are Determining Their Fate... Whose Thievery And Greed Is Determining Their Fate.

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

African American

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

If We Want A Beloved Community, We Must Stand For Justice, Have Recognition For Difference Without Attaching Difference To Privilege.

Beloved Community

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.

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

One Of The Most Subversive Institutions In The United States Is The Public Library.

Some People Act As Though Art That Is For A Mass Audience Is Not Good Art, And I Think This Has Been A Very Negative Thing. I Know That I Have Wanted Very Much To Write Books That Are Accessible To The Widest Audience Possible.

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.

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

Telling The Truth

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Order For Me To Engage In A Revolutionary Struggle For Collective Black Self-determination, I Have To Engage Feminism Because That Becomes The Vehicle By Which I Project Myself As A Female Into The Heart Of The Struggle, But The Heart Of The Struggle Does Not Begin With Feminism. It Begins With An Understanding Of Domination And With A Critique Of Domination In All Its Forms.

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.

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.

The Soul Of Our Politics Is The Commitment To Ending Domination.

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.

Because We Have Learned To Believe Negativity Is More Realistic, It Appears More Real Than Any Positive Voice.

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

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.

If I Were Really Asked To Define Myself, I Wouldn’t Start With Race; I Wouldn’t Start With Blackness; I Wouldn’t Start With Gender; I Wouldn’t Start With Feminism. I Would Start With Stripping Down To What Fundamentally Informs My Life, Which Is That I’m A Seeker On The Path. I Think Of Feminism, And I Think Of Anti-racist Struggles As Part Of It. But Where I Stand Spiritually Is, Steadfastly, On A Path About Love.

Feminism Is A Movement To End Sexism, Sexist Exploitation, And Oppression.

Love Is An Action, Never Simply A Feeling.

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."

Our Hearts Connect With Lots Of Folks In A Lifetime But Most Of Us Will Go To Our Graves With No Experience Of True Love.

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

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.

Sexism Has Always Been A Political Stance Mediating Social Domination, Enabling White Men And Black Men To Share A Common Sensibility About Sex Roles And The Importance Of Male Domination.

I Gather Together The Dreams, Fantasies, Experiences That Preoccupied Me As A Girl, That Stay With Me And Appear And Reappear In Different Shapes And Forms In All My Work. Without Telling Everything That Happened, They Document All That Remains Most Vivid.

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.

Beloved Community Is Formed Not By The Eradication Of Difference But By Its Affirmation, By Each Of Us Claiming The Identities And Cultural Legacies That Shape Who We Are And How We Live In The World.

Beloved Community

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

I Mostly Want To Remind Her Of The Recipes Of Healing, And Give Her My Own Made-on-the Spot Remedy For The Easing Of Her Pain. I Tell Her, “get A Pen. Stop Crying So You Can Write This Down And Start Working On It Tonight.” My Remedy Is Long. But The Last Item On The List Says: “when You Wake Up And Find Yourself Living Someplace Where There Is Nobody You Love And Trust, No Community, It Is Time To Leave Town – To Pack Up And Go (you Can Even Go Tonight). And Where You Need To Go Is Any Place Where There Are Arms That Can Hold You, That Will Not Let You Go.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

War In Its Essence Is Another Form Of Capitalism. Wars Make People Rich - And They Make A Lot Of People Poor, And They Take A Lot Of People's Lives Away From Them. So Much Of The War That Is Happening Is The Attempt Of One Group To Snatch The Resources Of Another Group.

I Have Been Contemplating The Place And Meaning Of Love In Our Lives And Culture For Years. When A Subject Attracts My Intellectual And Emotional Imagination, I Am Long To Observe It From All Angles, To Know It Inside And Out.

Feminism As A Political Movement Has To Specifically Address The Needs Of Men In Their Struggle To Revolutionize Their Consciousness.

Power Feminism Is Just Another Scam In Which Women Get To Play Patriarchs And Pretend That The Power We Seek And Gain Liberates Us.

I Was Teasing My Brother That He Was Penniless, Homeless, Jobless. Right Now In His Life, Racism Isn't The Central Highlighting Force: It's The World Of Work And Economics. It Doesn't Mean That He Isn't Influenced By Racism, But When He Wakes Up In The Morning The Thing That's Driving His World Is Really Issues Of Class, Economics And Power As They Articulate Themselves.

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.

Without Justice There Can Be No Love.

Given The Way Universities Work To Reinforce And Perpetuate The Status Quo, The Way Knowledge Is Offered As Commodity, Women's Studies Can Easily Become The Place Where Revolutionary Feminist Thought And Feminist Activism Are Submerged Or Made Secondary To The Goals Of Academic Careerism

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.

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.

There Must Exist A Paradigm, A Practical Model For Social Change That Includes An Understanding Of Ways To Transform Consciousness That Are Linked To Efforts To Transform Structures.

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

Individuals Who Want To Believe That There Is No Fulfillment In Love, That True Love Does Not Exist, Cling To These Assumptions Because This Despair Is Actually Easier To Face Than The Reality That Love Is A Real Fact Of Life But Is Absent From Their Lives.

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

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?

The Capacity To Love Is Tied To Being Able To Be Awake, To Being Able To Move Out Of Yourself And Be With Someone Else In A Manner That Is Not About Your Desire To Possess Them, But To Be With Them, To Be In Union And Communion.

When We Only Name The Problem, When We State Complaint Without A Constructive Focus Or Resolution, We Take Hope Away. In This Way Critique Can Become Merely An Expression Of Profound Cynicism, Which Then Works To Sustain Dominator Culture.

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

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.

Right Now, For Many Americans, Class Is Being Foregrounded Like Never Before Because Of The Economic Situation. It Doesn't Mean That Race Doesn't Matter, Or Gender Doesn't Matter, But It Means That Right Now In Many People's Lives, In The Lives Of My Own Family Members, People Are Losing Jobs, Insurance.

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.

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

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 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.

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

Loving Relationships

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

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Charles Sanders Peirce

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