Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege. I want to live in a world where all women have access to education, and all women can earn PhD’s, if they so desire. Privilege does not have to be negative, but we have to share our resources and take direction about how to use our privilege in ways that empower those who lack it.
Interpretation
Privilege can be neutral, but it is important to use it to uplift others, particularly in education.
This quote by Bell Hooks emphasizes that privilege itself is not inherently negative; rather, the value lies in how individuals choose to utilize their privilege. It advocates for a world where all women have equal opportunities to pursue education and earn advanced degrees, highlighting the responsibility of those who are privileged to share their resources and empower those who do not have the same advantages.
In practice
In a speech discussing women's rights and education, this quote could inspire listeners to think about their role in supporting marginalized groups.
Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else.
While privacy strengthens all our bonds, secrecy weakens and damages connection. Lerner points out that we do not usually "know the emotional costs of keeping a secret" until the truth is disclosed. Usually, secrecy involves lying. And lying is always the setting for potential betrayal and violation of trust.
When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.
Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.
I still think it's important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique of marriage in patriarchal society — because once you marry within a society that remains patriarchal, no matter how alternative you want to be within your unit, there is still a culture outside you that will impose many, many values on you whether you want them to or not.
Usually, when people talk about the "strength" of black women . . . . they ignore the reality that to be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression, that endurance is not to be confused with transformation.
Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." -
It's important to read a book, but also to hold the book, to smell the book... it's perfume, it's incense, it's the dust of Egypt.
It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.
The thought of these vast stacks of books would drive him mad: the more he read, the less he seemed to know — the greater the number of the books he read, the greater the immense uncountable number of those which he could never read would seem to be…. The thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever.
Publicity, publicity, PUBLICITY is the greatest moral factor and force in our public life.
Routinely, when I finish a book, I think 'What will I do? Where will I get an idea?' And a kind of low-level panic sets in.
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