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Bell Hooks

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“Patriarchy, like any system of domination (for example, racism), relies on socializing everyone to believe that in all human relations there is an inferior and a superior party, one person is strong, the other weak, and that it is therefore natural for the powerful to rule over the powerless. To those who support patriarchal thinking, maintaining power and control is acceptable by whatever means.”

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Author:Bell Hooks
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“This rule of silence is upheld when the culture refuses everyone easy access even to the word “patriarchy.” Most children do not learn what to call this system of institutionaliz ed gender roles, so rarely do we name it in everyday speech. This silence promotes denial. And how can we organize to challenge and change a system that cannot be named?”

ChildrenCultureNamesEasyChallengesSilenceRolesSpeechEverydayRefuseGenderAccessDenialOrganizePatriarchySilence IsGender RolesEasy Access
Book:The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
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“Women have endeavored to guide men to love because patriarchal thinking has sanctioned this work even as it has undermined it by teaching men to refuse guidance...A useful gift all love's practitioners can give is the offering of forgiveness. It not only allows us to move away from blame, from seeing others as the cause of our sustained lovelessness, but it enables us to experience agency, to know we can be responsible for giving and finding love.”

ThinkingKnowsMenLoveGivingAgeMovingCausesLove IsSeeingTeachingFindingsResponsibleBlameRefuseGuidesGuidanceAgencyOfferingFinding LoveBeing ResponsibleGuide MeLovelessness
Author:Bell Hooks
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“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.”

KnowsWorldWayMindBelieveIndividualStruggleTeacherFindingsSeekingWitnessRootedVocationPositivelyTransformingOpen MindHopefulnessKeep An Open Mind
Book:Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope
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“Like many white liberals, Ken sees the whiteness of his social life as more an accident of circumstance than a choice. He would welcome greater diversity in the neighbourhood. However, he does not consciously do enough work either in his social life or in the larger community to make that diversity possible.”

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Book:Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope
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“Contrary to what some folks would have us believe, it is not tragic, even if undesirable, for a person to leave a liberal arts education not having read major works from this canon. Their lives are not ending. And the exciting dimension of knowledge is that we can learn a work without formally studying it. If a student graduates without reading Shakespeare and then reads or studies this work later, it does not delegitimize whatever formal course of study that was completed.”

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Author:Bell Hooks
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“Often their rage erupts because they believe that all ways of looking that highlight difference subvert the liberal belief in a universal subjectivity (we are all just people) that they think will make racism disappear. They have a deep emotional investment in the myth of sameness even as their actions reflect the primacy of whiteness as a sign informing who they are and how they think.”

PeopleThinkingWayBelieveActionBeliefDifferencesEmotionalRacismUniversalInvestmentMythDisappearRageSubjectivityHighlightsSamenessWhitenessInformingPrimacyEmotional InvestmentDeep Emotional
Book:Black Looks: Race and Representation
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