檳榔嶼

**** Introduction ****
- Love does not bring an end to difficuties, it gives us the strength to cope with difficulties in a constructive way.
- Love as a combination of care, knowledge, responsibility, respect, trust, and commitment.

**** Chap One ****
- Leaders who are addicted to alcohol, shopping, violence,or gaining power and fame by any means necessary rarely offer to anyone a vision of emotional well-being that can heal and restore broken lvies and broken communities.
- Self-love and love of others are both modes toward increasing self-valuation and encouraging political resistance in one's community.
- Everywhere I turned, I kept hearing that black boys needed discipline, that they needed to learn the meaning of hard wor, that they needed to have strong role models who would set boundaries for them and teach obedience. Again and again a militaristic model of boot camp and basic training was presented as a solution to the behavior problems of young black men.
  - Not once did I hear anyone speak about black boys needing love as a foundation that would ensure the development of sound self-esteem, self-love, and love of others.
- Martin Luther King Jr., <<Strength to Love>> : "When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of live. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. "
  - While he admonished black people again and again to recognize the importance of loving our enemies, of not hating white people, he did not give as much attention to the issue of self-love and communal love among black people.
  - King did not address the issue of how black people would love the enemy if they did not love themselves.
- Real men were fighters, not lovers.
  - Freedom, militant black leaders, told the world, was about the will to power and not the will to love.
  - The more freedom became synonymous with gaining equal rights within the existing social structure, the less love was a part of this equation.
  - Gaining access to material privilege increasingly became the emphasis of the black liberation struggle. Economic self-sufficiency was defined as the sole measure of freedom.
- The insistence on violent struggle was not to change the existing social order but rather to gain power and privilege within the system.
- King realized that a love ethic was central to any meaningful challenge to domination.
- To protect their class interests, these individuals often make it seem as though black capitalism is the same as black self-determination.
  - By embracing and projecting liberal individualism as the only way to success, they undermine a vision of collective well-being that necessarily requires sharing skills and resources.
- Addiction to materialism knows no class. Yet the impact of this addiction differs depending on one's class.
  - No matter what our class, black people who worship money are not interested in a love ethic.
  - Being economically in control of one's resources is an important aspect of healthy self-esteem.
  - Valuing material goods above all else creates spiritual crisis.
- Non-market values of communalism and sharing of resources, symbolized by the extended family household, were being replaced by liberal individualism.
- James Baldwin, <The Fire Next Time> : "... people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are."
  - pervasive addiction means that the desire to numb pain is greater than the force of spirit that would lead us to journey through pain and find our way to healing.
- June Jordan, <Where Is the Love> : "it is always the love that will carry action into positive new places."
- Contemporary focus on material gain as the key to healing our crisis has deflected attention away from the need for emotional growth, for us to embrace more wholeheartedly the art and act of loving.
  - Much hip-hop culture promotes hedonistic materialism, making everything associated with gaining wealth embody the essence of cool.
  - Masses of black people now look to material success as the sole measure of value and meaning in life.
- Gaining access to material privilege will never satisfy needs of the spirit. We seek to satisfy those cravings by endless consumption, appetites that easily turn into addictions that can never be satisfied.
  - Need of the spirit can only be satisfied when we care for the soul.
- Unless love is the force undergirding our efforts to transform society, we lose our way.
- Without changing structures of domination, we leave in place the culture of lovelessness.
- Love is profoundly political. Our deepest revolution will come when we understand this truth.
  - Only love can give us the strength to go forward in the midst of heartbreak and misery.
  - Only love can give us the power to reconcile, to redeem, the power to renew weary spirits and save lost souls.
- Without love our lives are without meaning.