Language Is Also A Place Of Struggle.

How Different Things Might Be If, Rather Than Saying "i Think I'm In Love," We Were Saying "i've Connected With Someone In A Way That Makes Me Think I'm On The Way To Knowing Love." Or If Instead Of Saying "i Am In Love" We Say "i Am Loving" Or "i Will Love." Our Patterns Around Romantic Love Are Unlikely To Change If We Do Not Change Our Language.

I Write These Words To Bear Witness To The Primacy Of Resistance Struggle In Any Situation Of Domination (even Within Family Life); To The Strength And Power That Emerges From Sustained Resistance And The Profound Conviction That These Forces Can Be Healing, Can Protect Us From Dehumanization And Despair.

Sadly, At A Time When So Much Sophisticated Cultural Criticism By Hip Intellectuals From Diverse Locations Extols A Vision Of Cultural Hybridity, Border Crossing, Subjectivity Constructed Out Of Plurality, The Vast Majority Of Folks In This Society Still Believe In A Notion Of Identity That Is Rooted In A Sense Of Essential Traits And Characteristics That Are Fixed And Static.

When The Feminist Movement Was At Its Zenith In The Late 60's And Early 70's, There Was A Lot Of Moving Away From The Idea Of The Person. It Was: Let's Talk About The Ideas Behind The Work, And The People Matter Less. It Was Kind Of A Gimmicky Thing, But Lots Of Feminist Women Were Doing It. Many Of Us Took The Names Of Our Female Ancestors - Bell Hooks Is My Maternal Great Grandmother - To Honor Them And Debunk The Notion That We Were These Unique, Exceptional Women. We Wanted To Say, Actually, We Were The Products Of The Women Who'd Gone Before Us.

All Too Often Women Believe It Is A Sign Of Commitment, An Expression Of Love, To Endure Unkindness Or Cruelty, To Forgive And Forget. In Actuality, When We Love Rightly We Know That The Healthy, Loving Response To Cruelty And Abuse Is Putting Ourselves Out Of Harm's Way.