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. Bell Hooks More Quotes by Bell Hooks More Quotes From Bell Hooks 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. Bell Hooks attachment race thinking One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library. Bell Hooks library institutions united-states 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. Bell Hooks men reality thinking 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 Bell Hooks longing female culture Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. Bell Hooks feminism oppression movement 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. Bell Hooks these-days community challenges 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. Bell Hooks responsible action fall 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. Bell Hooks self men book 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. Bell Hooks black fashion white The power of patriarchy has been to make maleness feared and to make men feel that it is better to be feared that to be loved. Whether they can confess this or not, men know that just is not true. Bell Hooks maleness feels men Patriarchy has no gender. Bell Hooks patriarchy gender 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. Bell Hooks principles justice men 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? Bell Hooks males color men To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to Bell Hooks pain feelings boys We fear that evaluating our needs and then carefully choosing partners will reveal that there is no one for us to love. Most of us prefer to have a partner who is lacking than no partner at all. What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love. Bell Hooks knowing-love may needs 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. Bell Hooks reading love-is moving 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. Bell Hooks diversity choices white I began writing a book on love because I felt that the United States is moving away from love. Bell Hooks moving-on writing book Sadly, children's passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only. Bell Hooks passion learning children 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. Bell Hooks buddhism spiritual teacher