(1992) - Loving Blackness as Political Resistance - bell hooks
Writer, critic, and professor bell hooks argues in her essay “Loving Blackness as Political Resistance”, from Black Looks: Race and Representation, that white supremacy depends on teaching Black people to hate Blackness and see themselves as unworthy of love. She examines how racism teaches Black people to see themselves as ugly and unworthy, reinforced by media and cultural narratives that equate whiteness with beauty and value. She argues that choosing to love Blackness, in oneself and others, is a deliberate act of political resistance that disrupts internalized racism and challenges the desire to escape Black identity through assimilation. This work is difficult and incomplete, she acknowledges, but insists that loving Blackness remains essential for healing and collective liberation.
To read more of bell hooks, see here.
It is only as we collectively change the way we look at ourselves and the world that we can change how we are seen. In this process, we seek to create a world where everyone can look at blackness, and black people, with new eyes.