Introduction
What is love? According to L'Antoinette Stines on the track “Black Effect” by The Carters, she introduces the song by saying, “Well, there's love of children, love of self, love of God, love of a partner, and all of them have a different shape, but all of them are the same in the end. It's about sensitivity, it's about passion, it's about the unconditional giving of self to another person. And there's love of humanity. That's the love that is needed most right now: love of humanity. But in everything, in all of that love, there is a soul. It's like when you take some eggs and break them, and you take the shells and mix them up, trying to find the ones that match. When you find the perfect match, that compatibility results in passion, results in the unconditional giving of self.”
The philosophy of love has always been difficult to define. What truly is love? As a Black woman, what does love look like for me? Is it something I have genuinely experienced or will ever experience? In this age of media overconsumption, it can be hard to discern if your feelings are your own or just a product of something you've seen online.
What if you're homosexual, adding being Black on top of that, and then being a woman as well? The idea of love can seem even harder to grasp and receive. At times, you may even question yourself—your appearance, your personality. Am I annoying? Is it how I dress? Should love require you to question yourself if it is supposed to be such a good feeling?
On the topics of love and its relationship with Black women, two literary pieces stand out the most: “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston and “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker. Both stories follow the lives of Black women throughout their journeys of love and cover topics such as abuse, identity, and the search for a genuine loving connection. Throughout this blog, we will reference both books, connecting real-life social issues to these forms of literature written by Black women.