When We Choose to Love . . .

Writes Brené Brown on today’s news of the death of author and activist bell hooks:

bell hooks changed my life in countless ways.

I once wrote that her work is responsible for 90% of the stretch marks on my heart and my mind.

I slept with Teaching to Transgress next to me when I was a brand-new professor. I was so afraid of the classroom that I needed her constant reminder of education as liberation. It had to be an honest space and that meant uncomfortable.

I bought copies of All About Love for our facilitators as a reminder of how a love ethic needs to guide our work – and not a soft, safe love but a fierce love in the face of the lovelessness of sexism, classism, white supremacy, and the other systems that dehumanize people and belittle love.

Related Off-site Links:
“The World Is a Lesser Place Today Without Her.” Acclaimed Author bell hooks Dies at 69 – Linda Blackford (Lexington Herald Ledger, December 15, 2021).
Trailblazing Feminist Author, Critic and Activist bell hooks Has Died at 69 – Anastasia Tsioulcas (NPR News, December 15, 2021).
bell hooks, Pathbreaking Black Feminist, Dies at 69 – Clay Risen (New York Times, December 15, 2021).
The Glory of bell hooks Will Live Forever – Revisit Some of Her Greatest Work Here – Keyaira Boone (Essence, December 15, 2021).
bell hooks on How We Raise Men – David Remnick (The New Yorker, December 15, 2021).
Love Does Not Abuse: The Parenting Philosophy of bell hooks – R.L. Stollar (RLStollar.com, December 6, 2020).
bell hooks’ Guide to Living With Love – Olivia Whitener and Kurt Houwen (Sojourners, May 25, 2016).
Challenging Capitalism and Patriarchy: An Interview with bell hooks – Victor Vaughn (Espresso Stalinist, July 15, 2013).
Dreams of Conquest: bell hooks on Hoop Dreams – Sight and Sound (April 1995). Here’s Why bell hooks Used Lowercase Letters For Her Name – Newsone (December 15, 2021).

UPDATES: bell hooks’ Death Is a Call to Action – Marcie Bianco (Think, December 16, 2021).
Remembering bell hooks, a Revolutionary Who Led With Love – Barbara Ransby (Yes! Magazine, January 18, 2022).

For more of bell hooks’ writings at The Wild Reed, see:
• The Choice (and Risk) That Is Love
• Liberating Paris

See also the previous posts:
• Love as “Quest and Daring and Growth”
• Our Lives as LGBTQI People: “Garments Grown in Love”
• Love As Exploring Vulnerability
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• A Sacred Pause
• Susan Raffo: Quote of the Day – September 11, 2012
• To Be Alive Is to Love
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Ilia Delio
• In the Garden of Spirituality – James B. Nelson