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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?

-Bell Hooks

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This Rule Of Silence

Bell Hooks

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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?

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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.

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

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

Feminism Is For Everybody

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.

Lying Has Become So Much The Accepted Norm That People Lie Even When It Would Be Simpler To Tell The Truth.

Love Is An Action, Never Simply A Feeling.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

It's Interesting--the Way In Which One Has To Balance Life--because You Have To Know When To Let Go And When To Pull Back.... There's Always Some Liminal (as Opposed To Subliminal) Space In Between Which Is Harder To Inhabit Because It Never Feels As Safe As Moving From One Extreme To Another.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Is Obvious That Many Women Have Appropriated Feminism To Serve Their Own Ends, Especially Those White Women Who Have Been At The Forefront Of The Movement; But Rather Than Resigning Myself To This Appropriation I Choose To Re-appropriate The Term “feminism,” To Focus On The Fact That To Be “feminist” In Any Authentic Sense Of The Term Is To Want For All People, Female And Male, Liberation From Sexist Role Patterns, Domination, And Oppression.

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

Secrets Find A Way Out In Sleep . . . It Is The Place Where There Is No Pretense.

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

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

We Know That So Much Of The War That Is Happening Is The Attempt Of One Group To Snatch The Resources Of Another Group.

Readers Forget That One Can Critique Yet Still Admire.

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.

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.

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.

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

Meaningful Relationship

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.

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

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.

The Greater Our Commitment, The More Likely Our Love Will Last.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Since Loving Is About Knowing, We Have More Meaningful Love Relationships When We Know Each Other And It Takes Time To Know Each Other.

Love Relationship

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.

I Get So Tired Of People Acting Like, You Know, Black Men And Women Never Help Each Other, Never Support Each Other.

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.

Often In My Lectures When I Use The Phrase “imperialist White-supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy” To Describe Our Nation’s Political System, Audiences Laugh. No One Has Ever Explained Why Accurately Naming This System Is Funny. The Laughter Is Itself A Weapon Of Patriarchal Terrorism.

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

None Of Us Should Be Ashamed To Speak Of Our Class Power Or Lack Of It. Overcoming Fear, Even The Fear Of Being Immodest, And Acting Courageously To Bring Issues Of Class- Especially Radical Standpoints – Into The Discourse Of Blackness Is A Gesture Of Militant Defiance, One That Runs Counter To Bourgeois Insistence That We Think Of “money” In Particular And Class In General As Private Matters.

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.

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

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

Changing The World

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Wars Make People Rich - And They Make A Lot Of People Poor, And They Take A Lot Of People's Lives Away From Them.

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

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.

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

I Think I Was Always Obsessed With Esthetics.

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.

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.

What We Cannot Imagine Cannot Come Into Being.

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

Beloved Community

It Is No Accident That This Homeplace, As Fragile And As Transitional As It May Be, A Makeshift Shed, A Small Bit Of Earth Where One Rests, Is Always Subject To Violation And Destruction. For When A People No Longer Have The Space To Construct Homeplace, We Cannot Build A Meaningful Community Of Resistance.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

When We Drop Fear, We Can Draw Nearer To People, We Can Draw Nearer To The Earth, We Can Draw Nearer To All The Heavenly Creatures That Surround Us.

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

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.

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

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.

True Resistance Begins With People Confronting Pain... And Wanting To Do Something To Change It.

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