It’s good to have some context for this activity. We draw heavily on bell hooks for this by discussing the following quotes among other things:  

“When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abusive cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care.” bell hooks, Love as the Practice of Freedom.

“I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility. Not this ‘In order to love you, I must make you something else’. That’s what domination is all about, that in order to be close to you, I must possess you, remake and recast you.” bell hooks, Love as the Practice of Freedom.

“Without love, our efforts to liberate ourselves and our world community from oppression and exploitation are doomed. Without an ethic of love shaping the direction of our political vision and our radical aspirations, we are often seduced, in one way or another, into continued allegiance to systems of domination – imperialism, sexism, racism, classism. bell hooks, Love as the Practice of Freedom. 

We also set some tenets for our understanding of love in this context: 

• Liberation cannot exist without the love of ourselves, and our communities; 
• Self-care must arise from self-love; 
• Institutions don’t love us, we must look to ourselves and our communities; 
• Love is mysterious, transgressive, powerful, and cannot be commodified.