I loved these essays by bell hooks. She passed away last year and I am sad to say that this is my first reading of her works. I have heard of her, and read different pieces of her writing before, but never sat down and read one of her collections. The anthropologist in me loves how she brings up the different aspects of love and ties it into different things in our lives and often shows us that we have gotten here by the environment we have grown up in, what we have consumed via media, and just in general us not wanting to be truthful with our ourselves.
Romance: Sweet Love was my favorite essay since she hit so many home truths.
TO RETURN TO love, to get the love we always wanted but never had, to have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships. We believe these relationships, more than any other, will rescue and redeem us. True love does have the power to redeem but only if we are ready for redemption.
The number of times that I sat and said to myself, yes this relationship with X will somehow complete me, make me a real girl/woman. Because the way that society treats you if you are single to me felt worse than staying in a relationship that I knew was not working for me even a little bit. I gave and gave to men who had no concept of anything beyond taking what I was giving and telling me how I was providing it was wrong. I was wrong, not attractive enough, smart enough, sexy enough. I didn’t cook enough, praise enough, show that they were the best thing ever in my life.
I do not miss dating.
I have had great sex with men who were intimate terrorists, men who seduce and attract by giving you just what you feel your heart needs then gradually or abruptly withholding it once they have gained your trust. And I have been deeply sexually fulfilled in bonds with loving partners who have had less skill and know-how.
She said a word there.
My second favorite essay was Values: Living by a Love Ethic.
AWAKENING TO LOVE can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination. Culturally, all spheres of American life—politics, religion, the workplace, domestic households, intimate relations—should and could have as their foundation a love ethic.
I don’t know if that’s even possible. What I loved about this essay is that hooks gets into the interplay between how fear and the media in certain aspects has prevented this being a reality for Americans. Most of what moves many of us in this day and age is fear. Does love really move us in our politics? In our day to day lives? On how we treat strangers? Is it even possible?
And then my third favorite essay was Community: Loving Community.
Much of the talk about “family values” in our society highlights the nuclear family, one that is made up of mother, father, and preferably only one or two children. In the United States this unit is presented as the primary and preferable organization for the parenting of children, one that will ensure everyone’s optimal well-being. Of course, this is a fantasy image of family.
Think on how many things are framed this way. The media does stories on the poor family who can’t afford milk. The family that just wants their children to be taught it’s okay to be white (when is it never not okay?). The family just wants their kids in school and learning things and wearing masks and getting vaccinated is too much. I have seen many people on social media blasting the media and certain politicians for not reflecting reality in the United States. I agree with them. Many of us do not have a family that looks like the above. You have single mothers, fathers, kids who are orphaned and have no siblings, people who have chosen their own family for whatever reason. Why we keep going back to this made up myth of American families baffles me.
