A white college student from a private college goes into a poor neighborhood and volunteers four hours a week and that's considered exemplary. [Whereas] a poor kid who lives in that community and takes care of all the kids in that neighborhood four hours every day is not seen as a volunteer.

Far too many black men who praise their own mother feel less accounted to the mothers of their own children.

I suggest that Black feminist thought consists of specialised knowledge created by African-American women which clarifies a standpoint of and for Black women. In other words, Black feminist thought encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women's reality by those who live it.

The role model approach to social change is no substitute for challenging unjust employment practices, educational policies and housing.

Work for black women has been an important and valued dimension of Afrocentric definitions of black motherhood.

That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave.

Challenging power structures from the inside, working the cracks within the system, however, requires learning to speak multiple languages of power convincingly.