Editors' Note

Abstract

Editors' Note Red Washburn and Brianne Waychoff bell hooks states, "Love is an action, never simply a feeling." This issue, Black Love, arrives during a critical moment in the ongoing struggle for racial justice. With the political urgency of the Movement for Black Lives, prison abolition, cops out of Pride, decolonize the curriculum, and bell hooks joining the ancestors, we remember love is a verb. We use this vision to help us imagine a better life in which love transcends rigid concepts of romantic coupledom under capitalism, and instead, expands the thought and practice of love as a community project of mutual aid, trust, care, kindness, compassion, respect, and solidarity across the spectrum of difference. The politics of love holds much promise for honoring self-care, educating for critical consciousness, and promoting social change. Love allows us to hold space for Black people to heal under white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and capitalism, as well as move toward a collective social responsibility to build a better world where we all are free. The guest editors, writers, and artists who contributed to this issue explore the knowledge/power of Black love from different angles of vision that enrich this interdisciplinary area of study in exciting ways. We are indebted to the guest editors Mary Frances Phillips, Rashida L. Harrison, and Nicole M. Jackson for convening this issue. We are delighted to feature work on Black love, nationally and transnationally, ranging from the United States to Nigeria, as well as Trinidad and Tobago. We commend the stellar academic essays on social movements, self-care, and cultural productions, especially centering the writings of Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. We celebrate the stunning creative writing and visual art by Arisa White, Roya Marsh, and Mel Michelle Lewis, among other notable contributors. We are grateful for this scholarship and activism. We want to thank WSQ, including the editorial board; poetry, prose, and [End Page 10] art editors; and editorial assistants. In particular, we want to extend a tremendous thank-you, thank-you, thank-you to the editorial assistants, Amy Iafrate, Alex Johnson, Joe Goodale, Ivy Bryan, Googie Karrass, and Kayla Reece, all of whom worked tirelessly on communicating with the scholars, writers, and artists to make this issue happen. In addition, we want to extend a very generous thank-you to Dána-Ain Davis, Director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society, and administrative staff Eileen Liang and Jennifer Bae for providing WSQ with internships in feminist publishing for graduate students in women's and gender studies at the City University of New York. Our partnership has significantly enriched the quality of the journal for our feminist communities across CUNY and beyond. We are greatly indebted to the Feminist Press for all its help with scheduling, copyediting, and distributing our issues, especially to Interim Executive Director Lauren Rosemary Hook and Assistant Editor Nick Whitney. We cannot thank you enough for your help and support. We also wish to thank Associate Director of the Center for the Humanities Kendra Sullivan, as well as Jordan Lord and Sampson Starkweather for collaborating with us and building a new vision for the journal, including aiding with publicity and administrative matters. We acknowledge the support we have received from President Kaye Wise Whitehead and Former Interim Executive Director Jen Ash of the National Women's Studies Association, as well as the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP). Lastly, we want to thank each other as general editors of WSQ for continuing this work during a global pandemic with much loss and grief. We are looking forward to celebrating fifty years of WSQ and the future of this important feminist journal. Red Washburn Kingsborough Community College Director of Women's and Gender Studies Associate Professor of English City University of New York Brianne Waychoff Borough of Manhattan Community College Associate Professor of Speech Communications and Theatre Arts, Gender and Women's Studies Program City University of New York Works Cited hooks, bell. 2001. All About Love: New Visions. New York: William Murrow. Google Scholar Copyright © 2022 Red Washburn and Brianne Waychoff