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Dear W.O.K.E. Members!

Happy New Year!

We made it another year, and I am super excited for 2023! Thank you all for attending W.O.K.E. meetings virtually during the COVID Pandemic! Although COVID-19 is lingering, with precautions and safety in mind, I am glad to announce that W.O.K.E. (Women of Kolour Empowered) will be in-person for the first time since February 2020! I can't believe it's been that long!

February is a particular month. Not only is the month of love-(Valentine’s Day), I would love to incorporate Valentine's Day and Black History Month! The theme for this meetup will be "all about love, New Visions"- by bell hooks.

I was fortunate to read this book late last year, and of course, anything by bell hooks, I was blown away.

Here's a brief description:

A New York Times bestseller and enduring classic, All About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks' "Love Song to the Nation" trilogy. All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about Love and inspiration to help us instill caring, compassion, and strength in our homes, schools, and workplaces.

"The word 'love' is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb," writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, renowned scholar, cultural critic, and feminist bell hooks offers a proactive new ethic for a society bereft with lovelessness--not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, and unity. People are divided, she declares, by society's failure to provide a model for learning to love.
As bell hooks use her incisive mind to explore the question "What is love?" her answers strike at both the mind and heart. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal Love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and a nation. The Utne Reader declared bell hooks one of the "100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life." All About Love is a powerful, timely affirmation of just how profoundly her revelations can change hearts and minds for the better.

You don't have to read the book to participate. Questions and themes will be taken from the book for a great spirited, inspirational, and lively discussion!

Some themes that we will be discussing:

  • "Young people are cynical about Love. Ultimately, cynicism is the great mask of the disappointed and betrayed heart.'
  • "When we face pain in relationships, our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment."
  • "All too often, women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of Love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly, we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm's way."
  • "But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape."
  • "the wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear the other's truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know Love."
  • "To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds."

So, let's discuss this on February 19th, at Go Hard Dance Studio-2307 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. BLVD-Ground Floor (Btw 135 &136th ST). The meetup time will be from 4:45 pm-7pm.

Hope to see you there, and bring a friend or two:)
B.Y.O.B. :)

Will you make a small
$5 donation today?

Ways to donate:

All the Best,
Amy Afua, LCSW

Related topics

Events in New York, NY
Thought-Provoking Conversations
Women's Social
Women of Color
Women's Support
Black Women Social Gathering

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