Kennedy Davis

“The fear of being alone, or of being unloved, had caused women of all races to passively accept sexism and sexist oppression.”
― Bell Hooks, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

“Women, all women, are accountable for racism continuing to divide us. Our willingness to assume responsibility for the elimination of racism need not be engendered by feelings of guilt, moral responsibility, victimization, or rage. It can spring from a heartfelt desire for sisterhood and the personal, intellectual realization that racism among women undermines the potential radicalism of feminism. It can spring from our knowledge that racism is an obstacle in our path that must be removed. More obstacles are created if we simply engage in endless debate as to who put it there.”
― bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

“In an imperialist racist patriarchal society that supports and condones oppression, it is not surprising that men and women judge their worth, their personal power, by their ability to oppress others.”
― bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

“Initially, class privilege was not discussed by white women in the women’s movement. They wanted to project an image of themselves as victims and that could not be done by drawing attention to their class. In fact, the contemporary women’s movement was extremely class bound. As a group, white participants did not denounce capitalism. They chose to define liberation using the terms of white capitalist patriarchy, equating liberation with gaining economic status and money power. Like all good capitalists, they proclaimed work as the key to liberation. This emphasis on work was yet another indication of the extent to which the white female liberationists’ perception of reality was totally narcissistic, classist, and racist. Implicit in the assertion that work was the key to women’s liberation was a refusal to acknowledge the reality that, for masses of American working class women, working for pay neither liberated them from sexist oppression nor allowed them to gain any measure of economic independence.”
― bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism