Rock My Soul Quotes

“One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library..”
― bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem

“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.”
― bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem

“black identities are diverse and complex…”
― bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem

“without a core foundation of healthy self-esteem we can't practice self love.”
― bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem

“Shaming is one way to intimidate and break the spirit.”
― bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem

“Just as the liberation theology of the past offered to African Americans a vision of a counterculture where justice could prevail, where excess and decadence were questioned, contemporary African Americans are in need of a spirituality that calls for renewal and restoration of the soul, a religion that truly celebrates coming together, reunion.”
― bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem

“We often overestimate the degree to which exploitative behavior has been normalized and the degree to which we’ve internalized these norms. It takes, then, a commitment to an acutely self-conscious practice to be able to think and behave better than we’ve been taught.”
― bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem