Best Of bell hooks' "Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics "

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from from Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics by bell hooks

I would like to note that I have not gone through and capitalized "black" to "Black" as is common, current practice as hooks did not capitalize "black" in her book. Given she was known for not capitalizing her names, I figured this was very much intentional and best not to mess with the late, great, remarkable bell hooks.

Engaging in intellectual exchange where people hear a diversity of viewpoints enables them to witness first hand solidarity that grows stronger in a context of productive critical exchange and confrontation.

p. 6

Critiques that offer critical insight without serving as a barrier to appreciation are necessary if black folks are to develop cultural products that will not be simply received, accepted, and applauded because of tokenism, a gesture which simply reinforces paternalistic notions of white supremacy.

p. 7

Teaching and writing about the work of black women writers, I often meet tremendous resistance from students and colleagues when I suggest that we must do more than express positive appreciation for this work, that to engage it critically in a rigorous way is more a gesture of respect than is passive acceptance.

p. 7 

Witnessing the genocidal ravages of drug addiction in black families and communities, I began to "hear" that longing for a substance as, in part, a displacement for the longed-for liberation-the freedom to control one's destiny. All too often our political desire for change is seen as separate from longings and passions that consume lots of time and energy in daily life. Particularly the realm of fantasy is often seen as completely separate from politics. Yet I think of all the time black folks (especially the underclass) spend just fantasizing about what our lives would be like if there were no racism, no white supremacy.

p. 12-13

Rap projects a critical voice, explaining, demand-ing, urging.

p. 27

…I have seen that knowledge, especially that which enhances daily life and strengthens our capacity to survive, can be shared. It means that critics, writers, and academics have to give the same critical attention to nurturing and cultivating our ties to black community that we give to writing articles, teaching, and lecturing. Here again I am really talking about cultivating habits of being that reinforce awareness that knowledge can be disseminated and shared on a number of fronts. The extent to which knowledge is made available, accessible, etc. depends on the nature of one's political commitments.

p. 30-31

The arts remain one of the powerful, if not the most powerful, realms of cultural resistance, a space for awakening folks to critical consciousness and new vision. Crossover trends in black music, film, etc. that require assimilation have a devastating anti-black propagandistic impact. We need to call attention to those black artists who successfully attract diverse audiences without pandering to a white supremacist consumer market while simultaneously creating a value system where acquisition of wealth and fame are not the only measures of success.

p. 39

We need to keep alive the memory of our struggles against racism so that we can concretely chart how far we have come and where we want to go, recalling those places, those times, those people that gave a sense of direction. If we fall prey to the contemporary ahistorical mood, we will forget that we have not stayed in one place, that we have journeyed away from home, away from our roots, that we have lived drylongso and learned to make a new history. We have not gone the distance, but we can never turn back. We need to sing again the old songs, those spirituals that renewed spirits and made the journey sweet, hear again the old testimony urging us to keep the faith, to go forward in love.

p. 40

Black women and men must create a revolutionary vision of black liberation that has a feminist dimension, one which is formed in consideration of our specific needs and concerns. Drawing on past legacies, contemporary black women can begin to reconceptualize ideas of homeplace, once again considering the primacy of domesticity as a site for subversion and resistance. When we renew our concern with homeplace, we can address political issues that most affect our daily lives. Calling attention to the skills and resources of black women who may have begun to feel that they have no meaningful contribution to make, women who may or may not be formally educated but who have essential wisdom to share, who have practical experience that is the breeding ground for all useful theory, we may begin to bond with one another in ways that renew our solidarity.

p. 48

Teaching women's studies classes, I often encounter students who do not want to read a particular writer's work because they consider it sexist or misogynist. Whenever that happens I use the occasion to talk about the danger of passing judgment in ways that suggest we should not read a writer because of his or her political stance on a particular issue, the danger of using hearsay to negate a work. Encouraging students to go to the source and critique from there, I reiterate that knowledge is more powerful than hearsay.

p. 65

In his contribution to the collection of essays Watching Television, "We Keep America on Top of the World," Daniel Hallin cautions viewers to remember that television influences the public's political consciousness. Certainly since many people live in racially segregated environments, they learn about race and racism from the tube. Hallin's comments on television news are equally true of the talk show: "One of the things that is most distinctive about TV news is the extent to which it is an ideological medium, providing not just information or entertainment, but 'pockets of consciousness'-frameworks for interpreting and clues for reacting to social and political reality." Since television is one of the primary propaganda machines used within this white supremacist state, African-Americans need to consider whose interests are served when the predominant representation of black culture both on television news and in talk shows suggests that the black family is disintegrating and that a hostile gender war is taking place between black women and men.

p. 73

Weeks after the conference ended, I was still defending my position that it was important for women of color to treat one another with respect, even if that meant extending oneself beyond what might normally be seen as appropriate behavior. Audre Lorde makes this point again and again in her insightful essay "Eye to Eye," reminding readers that in patriarchal white supremacist context, this gesture, whether it be black women dealing with one another with respect, or women of color in general, is an act of political resistance. It is an indication that we reject and oppose the internalized racism that would have us work against one another.

p. 94

Usually the famous or well-known person accepts the assertion of dominating power as part of her due, as the rewards of status. Within the United States this is part of what lets you know you've made it, you're a star. One of the perks is that you are often allowed to treat others badly, to be offensively narcissistic, and though folks may hate you, they rarely call you on your shit. In this culture we are socialized to believe that really important people have a right to be self-absorbed, to think their needs and concerns are more important than others'. This may be especially problematic for black women who become stars because there are so few of us in any arena.

It is difficult because stardom on a broad scale means simultaneous isolation and fame. This then breeds fierce territorialism since we operate within a social matrix that is always telling us that only one of us can be at the top. Since many black women/women of color have usually overcome grave obstacles to arrive at a point where we receive recognition, we can easily have a false sense of entitlement.

p. 95-96

The difficulties women of color face in a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy are intense. We can only respect and admire all among us who manage to resist, who become self-actualized. We need to cherish and honor those among us who emerge as "stars," not because they are above us but because they share with us light that guides, providing insight and necessary wisdom. To be a star, a diva, carries with it responsibility; one must learn to know and respect boundaries, using power in ways that enrich and uplift. In these times that are fundamentally more anti-feminist than post-feminist, feminist movement needs activists who can carry on the work of liberation, diva girls who are on the front line.

p. 102

Protestant black churches emphasized the parable of the talents, and commitment to spirituality also meant appreciating one's talents and using them. In our church if someone could sing or play the piano and they did not offer these talents to the community, they were admonished.

p. 106

Conscious articulation of a "black aesthetic" as it was constructed by African-American artists and critics in the sixties and early seventies was an effort to forge an unbreakable link between artistic production and revolutionary politics.

p. 106

Cultural decolonization does not happen solely by repudiating all that appears to maintain connection with the colonizing culture. It is really important to dispel the notion that white western culture is "the" location where a discussion of aesthetics emerged, as Taylor suggests; it is only one location.

p. 109-110

She was poor all her life. Her memory stands as a challenge to intellectuals, especially those on the left, who assume that the capacity to think critically, in abstract concepts, to be theoretical, is a function of class and educational privilege. Contemporary intellectuals committed to progressive politics must be reminded again and again that the capacity to name something (particularly in writing terms like aesthetics, postmodernism, deconstruction, etc.) is not synonymous with the creation or ownership of the condition or circumstance to which such terms may refer.

p. 112

I had no choice. I had to struggle and resist to emerge from that context and then from other locations with mind intact, with an open heart. I had to leave that space I called home to move beyond boundaries, yet I needed also to return there. We sing a song in the black church tradition that says, "I'm going up the rough side of the mountain on my way home." Indeed the very meaning of "home" changes with experience of decolonization, of radicalization.

At times, home is nowhere. At times, one knows only extreme estrangement and alienation. Then home is no longer just one place. It is locations. Home is that place which enables and promotes varied and everchanging perspectives, a place where one discovers new ways of seeing reality, frontiers of difference. One confronts and accepts dispersal and fragmentation as part of the construction of a new world Order that reveals more fully where we are, who we can become, an order that does not demand forgetting. "Our struggle is also a struggle of memory against forgetting."

p. 148

Yet he too succumbs to narcissism and, worse, despair.

p. 159 

They hide in desire, in that narcissistic space of longing where difference-rather than becoming the new site for resistance and revolution, for ending domination— becomes the setting for high spectacle, the alternative playground.

p. 163

Later, she found the source of her defiance in religion. It was the belief in spiritual community, that no difference must be made between the role of women and that of men, that enabled her to be "ready within." To Septima Clark, the call to participate in black liberation struggle was a call from God. Remembering and recovering the stories of how black women learned to assert historical agency in the struggle for self-determination in the context of community and collectivity is important for those of us who struggle to promote black liberation, a movement that has at its core a commitment to free our communities of sexist domination, exploitation, and oppression.

p. 207

We need to affirm one another, support one another, help, en-able, equip, and empower one another to deal with the present crisis, but it can't be uncritical, because if it's uncritical then we are again refusing to acknowledge other people's humanity. If we are serious about acknowledging and affirming other people's humanity then we are committed to trusting and believing that they are forever in pro-cess. Growth, development, maturation happens in stages. People grow, develop, and mature along the lines in which they are taught. Disenabling critique and contemptuous feedback hinders.

p. 208, Cornel West quoted in conversation with bell hooks

Homogeneity is dogmatic imposition, pushing your way of life, your way of doing things onto somebody else. That is not what we mean by community. Dogmatic insistence that everybody think and act alike causes rifts among us, destroying the possibility of community. That sense of home that we are talking about and searching for is a place where we can find compassion, recognition of difference, of the importance of diversity, of our individual uniqueness.

p. 213, also Cornel West quoted in conversation with bell hooks