Credit: Djavan Rodriguez
In December of 2021 we lost bell hooks, a giant thinker adept at identifying the inconsistencies of everyday life and building philosophical frameworks about our obligations to one another and how people, particularly Black women, can strive for wholeness and integrity in a white supremacist culture hellbent on dehumanizing us. So this month, we’re thinking all about love .. and Black people who have made and are making history, of course.
This is as good of a time as any to remind ourselves that the history we make doesn’t have to be loud and newsworthy. Sometimes it’s the history and traditions we pass from one generation to another, one heart to another. That’s love too. But history doesn’t only tell us how to love. In “All About Love,” bell hooks writes, “… [W}e spend a lifetime undoing the damage caused by cruelty, neglect, and all manner of lovelessness experienced in our families of origin and in relationships where we simply did not know what to do.” Which means there are some histories—in this way, I mean patterns and traditions—we need to unlearn.
In addition to our editorial focus on “all about love,” there are a couple of exciting goings on at The Lighthouse this month: a refreshed website we’ll be debuting soon and a few wonderful folks we’ve added to the team (Perdita Patrice, Dawson Johnson and Jaylin Jones). We also have one other thing we want to put on your radar.
We’ve launched a campaign for the month of February, #Raceto300. Among Black Girl Times Redux (our monthly newsletter) and all our social media platforms—Twitter, Insta and Facebook—we’re looking to gain at least 300 more followers by the end of the month. We’ve challenged ourselves, and hope you’ll help us do that. And you know we love a giveaway, so we’ll do a drawing at the end of the month from all our new followers. One of them will win an Apple HomePod; two others, gift certificates. (If you’re already following us, get a friend to follow, and if their name is drawn, convince them the HomePod is technically yours. Just a suggestion.)
That’s all for now. Deep, revolutionary love to you all. And until next time, let’s think on these things: Who have been your best teachers about love? What are you working to unlearn? What does Black love—absent romanticism—look like?