Racism has always been a divisive force separating black men and white men, and sexism has been a force that unites the two groups. - bell hooks

Whether we learn how to love ourselves and others will depend on the presence of a loving environment. Self-love cannot flourish in isolation.

Any black person who clings to the misguided notion that white people represent the embodiment of all that is evil and black people all that is good remains wedded to the very logic of Western metaphysical dualism that is the heart of racist binary thinking. Such thinking is not liberatory. Like the racist educational ideology it mirrors and imitates, it invites a closing of the mind.

as females in a patriarchal culture, we were not slaves of love; most of us were and are slaves of longing — yearning for a master who will set us free and claim us because we cannot claim ourselves