My Dad has always been full of wisdom. He once described love to me as a pure and positive force that could not take any other form but itself. He said that actions that were jealous, angry, or otherwise ego-driven weren’t in the name of love. And that stuck with me ever since.
I look back at how I’ve received love and a lot of them were in forms my father decried as false. I’ve tried my best to love as purely and openly as possible. It has backfired a lot but I don’t regret what I did or how.
And that got me thinking about how love has been discussed by some of the great Black scholars and thinkers of our times and in this article, I’d like to share some with you.
“Love is divine only, and difficult always.”
Toni Morrison
“Love is where you find it. And you don’t know here it will carry you. And it is a terrifying thing [love]. It’s the only human possibility but it’s terrifying. And a man can fall in love with a man, a woman can fall in love with a woman. There’s nothing that anybody can do about it.”
James Baldwin
“Love is space. It is developing our own capacity for spaciousness within ourselves to allow others to be as they are. That is love. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t have hopes or wishes that things are changed or shifted, but that to come from a place of love is to be in acceptance of what is, even in the face of moving it towards something that is more whole, more just, more spacious for all of us.”
Angel Kyodo Williams
“Some people forget that love is
Nikki Giovanni
tucking you in and kissing you
“Good night”
no matter how young or old you are”
“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”
Zora Neale Hurston
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
Dr Maya Angelou
“Love quiets fear.”
Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents
Update: Adding this article from The Marginalia (née Brain Pickings) about James Baldwin and his thoughts on love and freedom.