bell hooks
bell hooks
American author, feminist, and social activist whose real name is Gloria Jean Watkins. She wrote "Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism".
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth25 September 1952
CityHopkinsville, KY
CountryUnited States of America
school knowing african-american
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.
kings school 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 to be remembered is that strength to love.
home school self
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.
teaching school white
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.
school elude-us how-to-love
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.
art assert building essential foundation identity males schooled sees
All over the world, young males and females, schooled in the art of patriarchal thinking, are building an identity on a foundation that sees the will to do violence as the essential way to assert being.
black blessed brutal culture found move rise small successful targets vicious woman writer
I feel enormously blessed to be a successful black woman writer in this culture, but I have found my small fame, such as it is, to be very isolating... because I think that especially for black women, the more we rise from the bottom, the more we move and journey, the more we are the targets of the most brutal and vicious attacks.
forget admire critique
Readers forget that one can critique yet still admire.
commitment
Clearly, commitment is a necessary component for creating loving relationships.
commitment
The greater our commitment, the more likely our love will last.
appreciate acknowledge critique
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.
writing reality thinking
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.
love-is practice feelings
Love is first and foremost exemplified by action - by practice - not solely by feeling.
love-is thinking self
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.