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
struggle political despair
Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.
love self would-be
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.
happiness success perseverance
I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.
meaningful tasks meaningful-relationship
To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.
mean love-is childhood
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.
country rights justice
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.
believe commitment expression
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.
responsibility thinking accountability
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.
beloved-community justice want
If we want a beloved community, we must stand for justice.
people focus political
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.
real believe voice
Because we have learned to believe negativity is more realistic, it appears more real than any positive voice.
children thinking knows
Only grown-ups think that the things children say come out of nowhere. We know they come from the deepest parts of ourselves.
reality roots imagination
To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.
teacher believe struggle
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.