Jo Bell Quotes

It is crucial for the future of the Black liberation struggle that we remain ever mindful that ours is a shared struggle, that we are each other's fate.

Feminism as a theoretical enterprise is approached differently by Black women depending on where we are. There are more reformist Black women who tend to use the phrase "Black feminism".

Justice is possible without equality, I believe, because of compassion and understanding. If I have compassion, then if I have more than you, which is unequal, I will still do the just thing by you.

If anything I think postmodernism has the least impact on my work.

Assumptions that racism is more oppressive to black men than black women, then and now ... based on acceptance of patriarchal notions of masculinity.

I do get a little pissed at people who write me and want me to do things, and spell my name wrong.

I think I was always obsessed with esthetics.

I feel sad that we have allowed these knee-jerk feminists who want to act like it's a struggle against men...but again that's the least politically developed strand of feminism.

I've written 18 books, mostly dealing with issues of social justice, ending racism, feminism, and cultural criticism.

When we concentrate on photography, we make it possible to see the walls of photographs in black homes as a critical intervention, a disruption of white control over black images.

What's so amazing about this historical moment is that it is bringing class to the fore and we have to think about the nature of work and hierarchy.

. . .there is an element of Play that is almost ritualistic in Black folk life. It serves to mediate the tensions, stress, and pain of constant exploitation and oppression.

Knowing love or the hope of knowing love is the anchor that keeps us from falling into that sea of despair.

Writing and the hope of writing pulls me back from the edges of despair. I believe insanity and despair are at times one and the same.

Language is also a place of struggle.

Since anti-racist individuals did not control mass media, the media became the primary tool that would be used and is still used to convince black viewers, and everyone else, of black inferiority.

Remember, care is a dimension of love, but simply giving care does not mean we are loving.

People with healthy self-esteem do not need to create pretend identities.

If we give our children sound self-love, they will be able to deal with whatever life puts before them.

In a culture of domination, preoccupation with victimage is inevitable.

Yearning is the word that best describes a common psychological state shared by many of us, cutting across boundaries of race, class, gender, and sexual practice.

Power feminism is just another scam in which women get to play patriarchs and pretend that the power we seek and gain liberates us.

My focus has always been on the work - that work being critical thinking and writing. I am always doing that. That's where I am, wherever I am. Critical thinking and writing as my heartbeat.

Our hearts connect with lots of folks in a lifetime but most of us will go to our graves with no experience of true love.

It's interesting to look at all the aspects where everyday Americans, many of whom are not college educated, are thinking deeply now about our economic structure.

Anarchists have always gone against the grain, and that's been a place of hope.

I think we have to talk about educating the people for critical consciousness about what anarchy is.

The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech.

You have to trust that if you are calling my name in a way that is offensive to me, I'm going to share it with you. But you also have to know what your feelings are behind calling me "bell."

I think we have to choose, what are the issues that really matter? We have to trust that.

Even when people capitalize my name, I don't freak out, even though that would not be my choice.

Sadly, anarchy has gotten such a bad name. We don't really see much evidence of it because people associate it with reckless abandon.

I don't have issues around how I'm identified.

We know that so much of the war that is happening is the attempt of one group to snatch the resources of another group.

Wars make people rich - and they make a lot of people poor, and they take a lot of people's lives away from them.

Let's face it, war in its essence is another form of capitalism.

My work is mostly influenced by the concrete circumstances of our daily lives.

To the extent that we live in a postmodern world and it shapes the concrete circumstances of our daily lives, I would say postmodernism affects my work or influences my work.

I think it's crazy for us to think that people don't understand what's being foregrounded in their lives at a given point in time.

To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.

The fact is that it was bourgeois white feminism that I was reacting against when I stood in my first women's studies classes and said, "Black women have always worked."

I think Black people need to take self-esteem seriously.

I get so tired of people acting like, you know, black men and women never help each other, never support each other.

I think part of Western metaphysical dualism is, we're always being asked to choose one over the other.

The greater our commitment, the more likely our love will last.

Clearly, commitment is a necessary component for creating loving relationships.

Most of us find it difficult to accept a definition of love that says we are never loved in a context where there is abuse.

My idea of a delicious time is to read a book that is wonderful. But the ruling passion of my life is being a seeker after truth and the divine.

I've always been like that. I was a tomboy when I was a kid, so I was always playing baseball and basketball and football and stuff as a kid with the boys.

I understand men much better than most women I know.