ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the ways to think about love that deepen our understanding of its meaning and practice. Whenever people talk about black women's lives, the emphasis is rarely on transforming society so that we can live fully, it is almost always about applauding how well we have survived despite harsh circumstances or how we can survive in the future. Given the politics of black life in this white-supremacist society, it makes sense that internalized racism and self-hate stand in the way of love. Systems of domination exploit folks best when they deprive us of our capacity to experience our own agency and alter our ability to care and to love ourselves and others. The author empowered by the idea of love as the will to extend oneself to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth because it affirms that love is an action. For black people it's an important definition because the focus is not on material well-being.
