Centering Abundance: Rememberings from bell hooks on Love and Community

Yesterday, we learned that bell hooks, scholar, writer, poet, a woman I credit as one of my own intellectual foremothers, became an ancestor. bell hooks’ wisdom represented, for me, a praxis of loving critical thinking and accountability. I have always been drawn to her method of boldly acknowledging the influence of culture, system, and structural oppression while also lovingly affirming our individual agency, collective power and choice as we strive to “survive whole.” I would be remiss not to acknowledge the influence of bell hooks in my own evolution as a human, mother, partner, and DEIJ practitioner. This year, I created Liberated Love Notes™, which was heavily influenced by the gift of bell hooks.

As we wrap up the year and continue our conversation on what it means to center abundance, it feels timely to offer a few rememberings by bell hooks that emphasize the role of and power in community as we work toward a more just and loving world.  

Today, I invite us to remember…

“We all long for loving community. It enhances life’s joy. But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.” (all about love) 

I love being in community with others… and am ever mindful that if I am not critically self-aware, my own insecurities, self-doubts, and traumas can be projected onto those with whom I am in community. Inasmuch as community can be enriching to us all, we run the risk of creating containers that perpetuate harm if we are not doing our own “work.” I love bell hooks’ offering that knowing how to be solitary is not mutually exclusive from being in community.

Transformative community calls for a commitment to a loving relationship with self. Now, a loving relationship doesn’t suggest a linear path or expectations of perfection, “getting it right” all the time… those are lies that (as bell hooks would call it) a white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist culture would have us believe. A loving relationship with self is iterative and evolving, engages our mind, body, and spirit. For me, this year, a loving relationship with self, looked like becoming more adept to the ways I am able to settle my body in times of distress and discomfort. It looked like developing a practice around NOTICING when I felt constriction and tension… and honoring those feelings with something as simple as a rock, a hum, a hug. For me, a loving relationship with self this year looked like carving out time for pause by way of journaling. It looked like restorative readings that challenged my thinking and reminded me of who I am, who I am from. Transformative community calls for a commitment to a loving relationship with self. 

Today, I also invite us to remember…  

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. (Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life) 

I have been reflecting on how the predominant culture of scarcity and individualism can often show up as an overemphasis on competition. Even industries and contexts that are altruistic in nature are not immune. Again, a white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist culture would have us believe that “winning” is more important than “collective impact,” and that if “winning” is the goal, only one or few of us can.

This was even more apparent to me this year as I became more familiar with the landscape of the “entrepreneur,” “accelerator” space. There was often this focus on “Who are your competitors?” “What makes you different from or more valuable than your competitors?” These are all relevant questions in a capitalistic context …and I often wondered, what it’d look like if this landscape gave equal attention to collective impact. “Who could you potentially partner with to drive greater impact?” “What partnerships across your industry could yield greater outcomes?” There are possibility models for this. I have personally experienced this cultural shift in my local community, as organizations like The Women’s Entrepreneur Leadership Lab (The WELL) and CLLCTIVLY become fertile ground for Black entrepreneurs and Black-led institutions to grow and see themselves as part of a broader social change ecosystems instead of a competitive landscape. Transformative community means focusing on collective impact over competition. 

Finally, today, I invite us to remember…

“To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination. A body of critical theory is now available that explains all the workings of white-supremacist thought and racism. But explanations alone do not bring us to the practice of beloved community. 
 
When we take the theory, the explanations, and apply them concretely to our daily lives, to our experiences, we further and deepen the practice of transformation.” (Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope) 

In my experience as a DEIJ practitioner, intellectualizing this work can sometimes show up as understanding concepts “in theory,” but struggling to embody them as part of our personal praxis. We might talk about “power dynamics” but struggle with applying a power analysis to how we engage in community, be it as a leader or manager, a parent or caregiver, or intimate partner and friend. As someone who holds marginalized identities, I must be mindful not to be so seduced by those experiences that I am unaware of how internalized oppression and dominance show up in me. Moving from theory to praxis for me has meant actively defying traditional power dynamics. As a leader and manager, deferring to the expertise of those closest to our “pain points;” as a mother, ensuring my young child knows that his voice, perspective, and questions matter even when I am challenged and triggered; as a Black woman who has benefitted from access to proximity to white institutions, it means grounding my praxis in the thought-leadership of ‘everyday’ Black folks who are equally deserving of being in the same rooms, but systematically excluded from them. Transformative community means unlearning the colonial inclination to have “power over,” and striving for “power with.” 

In a few weeks, some of us will begin focusing our efforts on visioning for the year ahead. As part of that work, my invitation to you would be to consider what it’d mean to center abundance in your world. What unlearning might you need to engage in? What remembering work, honoring of those historical anecdotes and possibility models might you benefit from embodying? How might you redefine or reimagine what it means to BE in community?   

“The intellectual tradition of the West is very individualistic. It’s not community-based. The intellectual is often thought of as a person who is alone and cut off from the world. So I have had to practice being willing to leave the space of my study to be in community, to work in community, and to be changed by community.” bell hooks