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Bell hooks
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==Personal life and death== Regarding her sexual identity, hooks described herself as "queer-pas-gay".<ref>{{cite news|last=Ring|first=Trudy|title=Queer Black Feminist Writer Bell Hooks Dies at 69|work=The Advocate|date=December 15, 2021|accessdate=December 15, 2021|url=https://www.advocate.com/people/2021/12/15/queer-black-feminist-writer-bell-hooks-dies-69|archive-date=December 15, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215184532/https://www.advocate.com/people/2021/12/15/queer-black-feminist-writer-bell-hooks-dies-69|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Goodman |first=Elyssa |title=How Bell Hooks Paved the Way for Intersectional Feminism |url=https://www.them.us/story/bell-hooks |access-date=December 16, 2021 |work=them. |date=March 12, 2019 |archive-date=December 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215194950/https://www.them.us/story/bell-hooks |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thefocus.news/culture/bell-hooks-queer-pas-gay/|title='Queer-pas-gay' identity meaning explored as Bell Hooks dies aged 69|first=Amber|last=Peake|work=The Focus|date=December 16, 2021|access-date=December 29, 2021|archive-date=December 29, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211229213519/https://www.thefocus.news/culture/bell-hooks-queer-pas-gay/|url-status=dead}}</ref> She used the term "pas" from the French language, translating to "not" in the English language. She describes being [[queer]] in her own words as "not who you're having sex with, but about being at odds with everything around it".<ref>{{cite web |title=Bell Hooks - Are You Still a Slave? Liberating the Black Female Body {{!}} Eugene Lang College |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJk0hNROvzs |publisher=[[The New School]] |date= May 7, 2014|access-date=March 7, 2022}}</ref> She stated, "As the essence of queer, I think of [[Tim Dean]]'s work on being queer, and queer not as being about who you're having sex with—that can be a dimension of it—but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it, and it has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live."<ref>{{cite news |last=Peake |first=Amber |title='Queer-pas-gay' identity meaning explored as Bell Hooks dies aged 69 |url=https://www.thefocus.news/culture/bell-hooks-queer-pas-gay/ |access-date=March 7, 2022 |work=TheFocus |date=December 16, 2021 |archive-date=December 29, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211229213519/https://www.thefocus.news/culture/bell-hooks-queer-pas-gay/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> During an interview with Abigail Bereola in 2017, hooks revealed to Bereola that she was single while they discussed her love life. During the interview, hooks told Bereola, "I don't have a partner. I've been celibate for 17 years. I would love to have a partner, but I don't think my life is less meaningful."<ref>{{cite news |last=Bereola |first=Abigail |title=Tough Love With Bell Hooks |url=https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a14418770/tough-love-with-bell-hooks/ |access-date=March 7, 2022 |publisher=[[Shondaland]] |date=December 13, 2017}}</ref> On December 15, 2021, bell hooks died from kidney failure at her home in Berea, Kentucky, aged 69.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> ===Buddhism=== Through her interest in [[Beat poetry]] and after an encounter with the poet and Buddhist [[Gary Snyder]], hooks was first introduced to [[Buddhism]] in her early college years.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tworkov |first=Helen |title=Agent of Change |url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/bell-hooks-buddhism/ |access-date=November 11, 2022 |website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review |date=January 9, 2017 |language=en}}</ref> She described herself as finding Buddhism as part of a personal journey in her youth, centered on seeking to recenter love and spirituality in her life and configure these concepts into her focus on activism and justice.<ref>{{Cite web |last=hooks |first=bell |title=Building a Community of Love – Lion's Roar |date=March 24, 2017 |url=https://www.lionsroar.com/bell-hooks-and-thich-nhat-hanh-on-building-a-community-of-love/ |access-date=November 27, 2022 |language=en-US}}</ref> After her initial exposures to Buddhism, hooks incorporated it into her Christian upbringing and this combined Christian-Buddhist thought influenced her identity, activism, and writing for the remainder of her life.<ref name="Medine, Carolyn M 2022">Medine, Carolyn M. Jones Medine. "Bell Hooks, Black Feminist Thought, and Black Buddhism: A Tribute". ''Journal of World Philosophies''. 7 (Summer 2022): pages 187–196.</ref> She was drawn to Buddhism because of the personal and academic framework it offered her to understand and respond to suffering and discrimination as well as love and connection. She describes the Christian-Buddhist focus on everyday practice as fulfilling the centering and grounding needs of her everyday life.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Yancy |first1=George |last2=hooks |first2=bell |date=December 10, 2015 |title=Bell Hooks: Buddhism, the Beats and Loving Blackness |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/bell-hooks-buddhism-the-beats-and-loving-blackness/ |access-date=November 27, 2022 |website=Opinionator |language=en}}</ref> Buddhist thought, especially the work of Thích Nhất Hạnh, appears in multiple of hooks' essays, books, and poetry.<ref name="Medine, Carolyn M 2022"/> Buddhist spirituality also played a significant role in the creation of love ethic which became a major focus in both her written work and her activism.<ref>Medine, C. M. J. "Bell Hooks, Black Feminist Thought, and Black Buddhism: A Tribute". ''Journal of World Philosophies'', volume 7, number 1, July 2022, pages 187–196, https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp/article/view/5479 .</ref>
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