Sisters of the Yam Quotes

“I mostly want to remind her of the recipes of healing, and give her my own made-on-the spot remedy for the easing of her pain. I tell her, “Get a pen. Stop crying so you can write this down and start working on it tonight.” My remedy is long. But the last item on the list says: “When you wake up and find yourself living someplace where there is nobody you love and trust, no community, it is time to leave town – to pack up and go (you can even go tonight). And where you need to go is any place where there are arms that can hold you, that will not let you go.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“No level of individual self-actualization alone can sustain the marginalized and oppressed. We must be linked to collective struggle, to communities of resistance that move us outward, into the world.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“We cannot fully create effective movements for social change if individuals struggling for that change are not also self-actualized or working towards that end. When wounded individuals come together in groups to make change our collective struggle it is often undermined by all that has not been dealt with emotionally.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“For black females, and males too, that means learning about the myriad ways racism, sexism, class exploitation, homophobia, and various other structures of domination operate in our daily lives to undermine our capacity to be self-determining.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“They persist in our daily life and they undermine our capacity to live fully and joyously. They even prevent us from participating in organized collective struggle aimed at ending domination and transforming society.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“Maybe, then, my lesbianism is no more than your manless self-reliance turned into itself.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“Yet, Marshall depicts Jay as losing touch with his sensuality and his sexuality when he becomes overly obsessed with acquiring material goods, with gaining economic power.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“Knowing when to quit is linked to knowing one's value.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“Now, living as we do in a racist/sexist society that has, from slavery on, perpetuated the belief that the primary role black women should play in this society is that of servant, it logically follows that many of us internalize the assumption that we/our bodies do not need care, not from ourselves or from others. This assumption is continually reinforced in our daily lives.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“Before many of us can effectively sustain engagement in organized resistance struggle, in black liberation movement, we need to undergo a process of self-recovery that can heal individual wounds that may prevent us from functioning fully.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“Having reached a point where I was successfully completing a number of desired goals, I was experiencing both a “void” and undergoing the kind of critical self-examination that brought about a crisis in meaning. It was a time for me to re-vision my life and chart new and different journeys. I think it’s very hard for successful black women (and black men) to turn away from achievements, high-status positions with visibility, that may no longer be meeting our growth needs.”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

“Writing “The Middle-Class Black’s Burden” in 1980, McClain shared: I am burdened daily with showing whites that blacks”
― bell hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery