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Bell Hooks Quotes - Page 13

All Quotes Abuse Acceptance Anarchy Art Awareness Belief Challenges Childhood Children Choices Commitment Community Compassion Country Criticism Culture Desire Diversity Effort Fate Feelings Feminism Focus Gender Giving Growth Heart Home Hurt Identity Imagination Integrity Justice Language Life Lifetime Loss Love Lying Oppression Pain Passion Patriarchy Prejudice Privacy Racism Rage Reading Reality Romantic Love School Self Esteem Self Love Sexism Shame Silence Sleep Soul Stress Struggle Students Suffering Teaching Understanding Vision War Writing

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

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.

Kings, Writing, School

"Building a Community of Love". Interview with Thich Nhat Hanh, plumvillage.org. January 1, 2000.

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.

Cutting, Race, Practice

bell hooks (2014). “Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics”, p.44, Routledge

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.

Hurt, Compassion, Practice

"Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh". www.lionsroar.com. March 24, 2017.

I think Black people need to take self-esteem seriously.

Self Esteem, Thinking, People

Clearly, commitment is a necessary component for creating loving relationships.

Commitment, Creating, Loving Relationships

Facebook post, www.facebook.com. April 8, 2016.

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.

Self, White, Appreciate

When the feminist movement was at its zenith in the late 60's and early 70's, there was a lot of moving away from the idea of the person. It was: let's talk about the ideas behind the work, and the people matter less. It was kind of a gimmicky thing, but lots of feminist women were doing it. Many of us took the names of our female ancestors - bell hooks is my maternal great grandmother - to honor them and debunk the notion that we were these unique, exceptional women. We wanted to say, actually, we were the products of the women who'd gone before us.

Moving, Grandmother, Unique

Source: nefac.net

Dare to look at the intersectionalities.

Looks, Dare, Intersectionality

Source: nefac.net

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.

White, Black, Students

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.

Psychics, Maintenance, Denial

Knowing love or the hope of knowing love is the anchor that keeps us from falling into that sea of despair.

Fall, Love Is, Knowing Love

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.

Commitment, Sisterhood, Goal

bell hooks (2014). “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center”, p.67, Routledge

Remember, care is a dimension of love, but simply giving care does not mean we are loving.

Mean, Giving, Doe

bell hooks (2018). “All About Love: New Visions”, p.8, HarperCollins

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.

Struggle, Men, Feminist

"Challenging Capitalism and Patriarchy: An Interview with Bell Hooks". Third World Viewpoint Interview, espressostalinist.com. July 15, 2013.

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.

Heart, Past, Giving

bell hooks (2018). “All About Love: New Visions”, p.26, HarperCollins

I feel that my environment reflects my belief in the grace and art and elegance of living simply.

Art, Grace, Belief

I think part of Western metaphysical dualism is, we're always being asked to choose one over the other.

Thinking, Metaphysical, Western

Source: nefac.net

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."

Class, White, Black

"Challenging Capitalism and Patriarchy: An Interview with Bell Hooks". Third World Viewpoint Interview, espressostalinist.com. July 15, 2013.

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.

Kings, Silly, Love You

"Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh". www.lionsroar.com. March 24, 2017.

I get so tired of people acting like, you know, black men and women never help each other, never support each other.

Tired, Men, People

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.

Strong, Children, Struggle

Interview with Pierce Freelon, blackademics.org. October, 2006.

I'm tired of the naked, raped, beaten black woman body. I want to see an image of black femaleness that alters our universe in some way.

Leadership, Wisdom, Tired

Like desire, language disrupts, refuses to be contained within boundaries.

Sex, Desire, Language

Bell Hooks (2014). “Teaching To Transgress”, p.175, Routledge

It was the world of Southern, rural, black growing up, of folks sitting on porches day and night, of folks calling your mama, 'cause you walked by and didn't speak, and of the switch waiting when you got home so that you could be taught some manners. It was a world of single black older women schoolteachers, dedicated, tough; they had taught your mama, her sisters, and her friends. They knew your people in ways that you never would and shared their insight, keeping us in touch with generations. It was a world where we had a history.

Growing Up, Home, Night

... feminist solidarity rooted in a commitment to progressive politics must include a space for rigorous critique, for dissent, orwe are doomed to reproduce in progressive communities the very forms of domination we seek to oppose.

Commitment, Space, Feminist

bell hooks (2012). “Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations”, p.78, Routledge

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