I’m inspired by Mother’s Day. It’s wonderful to know that this is not, after all, a Hallmark holiday, but one that has its roots in compassion, healing, and opposition to war and violence.

I’ve griped on here quite a bit about how alienating I find consumer capitalist culture, so to be reminded that one of the buy-things-to-show-you-care holidays actually has its origins in radical anti-violence activism and to see that it is actively being reclaimed this year by women of color activists gives my heart some serious joy.

And, because bell hooks has made a career out of insightful cultural criticism and does such a great job articulating the structure of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, here she is: