| In her book Salvation: Black people and love author bell | | | | on love given the adversity we have had to confront |
| hooks examines society's dependence on the strength | | | | on these shores, many of us have held to our hope in |
| and love of a black female parent. She begins the | | | | love because we believe in love's power to heal and |
| chapter on this topic with looking at how in the midst of | | | | renew, to reconcile and transform. It has not been |
| this dependence, we must acknowledge the reality of | | | | easy for black women to maintain faith in love in a |
| the contradiction that is placed on the black woman. | | | | society that has systematically devalued our bodies |
| She writes, | | | | and our beings. When we look back at the history of |
| "An overwhelming majority of black folks will | | | | black women, from slavery to the present day, we |
| testify that they were first loved by a black woman. In | | | | see ourselves represented first and foremost as |
| African-American life, black women have been love's | | | | inferior beasts of burden, compelled by circumstance |
| practitioner's. Amazingly, despite how easy it would | | | | to serve the needs of others. |
| have been or would be for black women to give up | | | | |