Loving black males find their way to love by letting go of patriarchal thinking which insists that they be defined by what they do with their penis, or by how brutal, mean, and dominating they can be toward someone else. Feminist thinking is useful to black males, and all males, who are grappling with the issue of self-love because it offers strategies that enable them to challenge and change patriarchal masculinity. It offers to men a vision of liberatory masculinity.

— Salvation by bell hooks (Page 146)