檳榔嶼

- Erich Fromm, <<The Art of Loving>> : "love is a fusion of care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility."
- M. Scott Peck : "the will to nurture one's own and another's spiritual growth."
- Jim Crow, <<Trouble in Mind>> : "Survival in a racist society often dictated that black people adjust to values and social mores imposed on us by the white world, which often affected our capacity to be loving."
- The reliance on lies, subterfuge, and manipulation used to get by in the world outside the home often became the standard of behavior in the home.
- No lesson imprinted on the consciousness of most black people was as detrimental to black family life as the unequivocal belief that domination and subordination was a natural order, that the strong should rule over the weak and that the more powerful should rule over the powerless by any means necessary.
  - Men who believed, as most of them did, that women were the weaker sex, put on this earth to serve and obey the stronger sex, often used physical assault to subordinate their female partners.
- Concern with material survival often precluded a focus on love in black families.
- Masses of black people suffered extreme material lack before the civil rights struggle altered the nature of the job market. It makes perfect sense that generations of black folks learned to see caring for someone's material well-being as a primary gesture of love.
- Though our father was a stern, demanding, and punishing patriarch, when we were growing up Mama always praised him for providing for us.
- "Of course he loves you. He's taken care of all your needs all these years."
  - Love was more than meeting someone's material needs - that it was about respect, care, knowledge, and responsibility. There was more to loving than caring for material needs.
- At the same time, I knew that working hard and sacrificing to meet material needs, to provide for one's family and kin, was a powerful gesture of care that could not be dismissed as having no value.
  - Providing really is not enough, even though it is crucial.
- Without a doubt, in black life across classes we tend to place too much importance on material well-being, neglecting our emotional development.
- When we identify respect (coming from a root word meaning "to look at") as one of the dimension of love, then it becomes clear that looking at ourselves and others means seeing the depths of who we are.
  - Looking into the depths, we often come face-to-face with emotional trauma and woundedness.
- Truthfully, it is easier to acquire material comforts than to acquire love.
  - Repression often turns pain into rage. It is more acceptable to express rage than to give voice to emotional needs.
- Taking recently with the popular young female rapper Lil' Kim, I asked about love in her life, and she responded: "Love. What's that? I have not know any love."
  - Her focus in life was on attaining more money and fame. Listening to her, I realized that it is easier for a talented individual to move from rags to riches in our society than it is for them to know love.
- We use the satisfaction of material longing to deny the need to love and be loved.
- Without trust there can be no genuine intimacy and love. To move toward love, we must confront the pain of abandonment and loss. This means speaking what may have once been unspeakable.