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Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

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When Sisters of the Black Women and Self-Recovery was originally released in 1994, it won critical praise and solidified bell hooks’ reputation as one of the leading public intellectuals of her generation. Today, the book is considered a classic in African American and feminist circles. In Sisters of the Yam , hooks examines how the emotional health of black women is wounded by daily assaults of racism and sexism. Exploring such central life issues as work, beauty, trauma, addiction, eroticism and estrangement from nature, hooks shares numerous strategies for self-recovery and healing. She also shows how black women can empower themselves and effectively struggle against racism, sexism and consumer capitalism. As hooks’ first book on psychological concerns, Sisters of the Yam paved the way for her more recent and popular writing on love, relationships and community. This South End Press Classics Edition will include a new introduction. Praise for Sisters of the Black Women and Self-Recovery : “By confronting topics avoided in polite company—including progressive black folks—hooks helps us tackle our deepest fears, those we harbor about our self-worth as African Americans, and get on with the business of becoming.”— Village Voice Literary Supplement “hooks continues to produce some of the most challenging, insightful, and provocative writing on race and gender in the United States today.”— Library Journal “[bell hooks] draws more effectively on her own experiences and sense of identity than . . . most other writers.”— Publishers Weekly

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1993

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About the author

bell hooks

127 books11.2k followers
bell hooks (born Gloria Jean Watkins) was an African-American author, feminist, and social activist. Her writing focused on the interconnectivity of race, class, and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and domination. She published over thirty books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, appeared in several documentary films and participated in various public lectures. Primarily through a postmodern female perspective, she addressed race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media and feminism.

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5 stars
781 (63%)
4 stars
317 (25%)
3 stars
99 (8%)
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18 (1%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 150 reviews
Profile Image for Angela.
5 reviews13 followers
Read
September 16, 2010
I had the honor of having Gloria Watkins ("bell hooks") as a professor at Yale. I was actually one of the Sisters of the Yams, a group on campus. I come back to this book often. The main lesson I got from this book is that if you are not happy in a place, get up and leave. It's the way I live my life. Definitely a great read.
Profile Image for Rowena.
501 reviews2,594 followers
December 19, 2014

I am a huge fan of this woman. I find so much healing and understanding in her words. I admire her candidness in acknowledging issues that are often just swept under the rug. She is one of the first academics I came across who considers the black experience in fields that often take the human condition as a homogeneous one. I feel so many black women would appreciate this book so much. Alongside Alice Walker's books, this is a good companion for black women's self-actualization, and the realization that we have to heal and continue the struggle as well.

Her book was written in 1993 so a few points are a bit dated and obsolete but it is still great.

Some quotes:

"Such wounds do not manifest themselves only in material ways, they effect our psychological well-being. Black people are wounded in our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits.

"Everywhere black women live in the world, we eat yam. It is a symbol of our diasporic connections. Yams provide nourishment for the body as food yet they are also used medicinally- to heal the body."

Collective healing

"Traditional therapy, mainstream psychoanalytical practices, often do not consider "race" an important issue, and as a result do not adequately address the mental-health dilemmas of black people."
Profile Image for Stephanie Spines.
123 reviews71 followers
December 3, 2012
Brilliant.

As a long-time bell hooks fan, it took me a while to read this one. I was in search of a self-help style book and had tried a few out when I realized that none of them adequately reflected my experiences as a black woman. Why I hadn't turned to hooks sooner is beyond me. While the book doesn't PERFECTLY reflect my experience, since hooks is of African-American heritage and I myself am of Caribbean heritage, and since hooks was raised poor while I experienced a degree of class privilege, it is, one of the best self-help books I have ever read. Also, I'm not necessarily on the same page as hooks where religion and spirituality is concerned, but even still, these parts of the book resonated with me.

If you are in any way lost in your life and particularly if you are a black woman, I would recommend this book to you.
Profile Image for chantel nouseforaname.
661 reviews349 followers
August 4, 2020
Yo what can I say! Sister bell hooks is a legend. This book dropped gem after gem. So much quality content. Like real talks, if you're a sister on a spiritual journey, get into this. I try to separate the people from the text where I can because if you follow all the stories about people it'll fuck with your head. However, what I will say is that the content in this book is a necessary must read for my black women who are feeling out of sorts. It's a great place to centre and organize just for you. Just for you, sis. More times we gotta do things just for us because we ain't getting any younger and the world ain't never on our side.

RIP Breonna Taylor and any other young black woman who has tragically lost her life, when she had just begun living, for some completely senseless reason. I love us and we need to take care of ourselves, our emotional states, our souls. Shit is real, shit is really real.
Profile Image for Phobean.
1,002 reviews44 followers
February 4, 2017
This is a hard book to rate. I'm not sure why? Maybe because it's not really about enjoyment, it's about life and how to weave through the layers of injustice, abuse, confusion, and fear to live with awareness and confidence and love, in community. In particular, this book is for black women - grand and great-grand children of American slavery and apartheid. Broadly, anyone can take from it hook's wisdom and sisterly care. Also, I appreciated how ms. hooks quotes from and draws on so many works of literature and non-fiction --of both the black American and self-help and recovery cannons. This book is one to come back to, a study.
Profile Image for Aisha.
8 reviews1 follower
November 23, 2009
A self-help book geared specifically towards black women - it's about time! What a phenomenal book and incredible woman. I'm sure this work has helped a lot of black women in their self-recovery process. What I don't understand is why more books like this don't exist.

hooks's caring and insight make reading this book an enlightening experience. Even if you don't agree with everything she has to say, there is at least one thing you can relate to.

Recommend it to sistas worldwide!
Profile Image for Never Without a Book.
469 reviews95 followers
August 17, 2020
Wow, what a book! It's a bit out dated but still much of what bell mentions is still relevant today. Over all 4.5stars.
Profile Image for Tina.
805 reviews146 followers
July 15, 2022
SISTERS OF THE YAM: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks was my first book by her and it was amazing! This book was originally published in 1994 and I listened to the audiobook of the second edition which came out in 2005 narrated by Adenrele Ojo. This book is still extremely relevant today. She discusses how Black women are assaulted by racism and sexism and how their emotional health suffers. She also offers insights and strategies on how Black women can empower themselves. This is a daily practice that is still needed in 2022. I loved the addition of the interview with hooks at the end. I’m so eager to read more of her work now.
.
Thank you to Tantor Audio via NetGalley for my ALC!
Profile Image for Helena Brantley.
45 reviews4 followers
April 27, 2013
I first read Sisters of the Yam in my 20's and for years it lived on my nightstand. Nearly 20 years later, it has been eye-opening to re-read the pages I highlighted back then and how large parts of this book are still relevant and helpful. With so many recent headlines about feminist thoughts, anniversaries, leaning in, and leaning out, much of it omitting issues of race and class, I wanted to re-read this book about feminism and about healing from a black women's perspective. I continue to give thanks for bell hooks, nearly 20 years after first discovering her writing as a young, single, woman living outside of Washington, DC.
Profile Image for Samara.
11 reviews8 followers
February 1, 2009
My friend Jackie recommended this book so many years ago. Yet, it is a standout and a "must read" for all women of color. Self love is s crucial to our well being. bell hooks continues to uplift and support "the sisterhood."
Profile Image for Charnise Mangle.
22 reviews2 followers
April 4, 2023
A must read book for Black women, and our
allies. The journey of self recovery has been incremental and deliberate for me over several years, and I am so thankful I stumbled across this book.

If I might be so bold as to suggest you next book it would be: Sacred Pampering Principles: An African-American Woman's Guide to Self-care and Inner Renewal
by Debrena Jackson Gandy. This suggestion because you now need to begin a journey that is like a soothing balm. After you’ve labored to till up your dried earth during self recovery. This book will teach you how to treat yourself because you deserve it.

I swear I heard a student, young Ms. Fogle, suggest this book to me at the beginning of the school year. She was telling me of her love for bell hooks and I could have sworn she said this was her favorite book. However, when I told her I was reading it she said she hadn’t heard of it. I guess the book gods knew I needed it, and that she needed it too because now I’ve suggested it to her!
Profile Image for Beverlee.
243 reviews31 followers
May 30, 2017
I'm not sure if I can articulate how important this book is to me, especially at this particular moment. I read Sisters Of The Yam at a time where I have to make a decision that will have a lasting impact- choice to further education, apply for a new position, or attempt both. Reviewing a passage from chapter 3 from a sister who was interviewed " you don't just work to get money, you work to create meaning for yourself and other people" is affirming my personal beliefs that one should never let a job be their identity and that whatever work you do should have meaning.
Another key point in self recovery is the ability to live well. hooks explores an idea that is revolutionary (in my opinion anyway) that black women are entitled to live well. Society's definition of live well differs along racial and gender stereotypes, but hooks explains it as "we feel empowered to make changes, to break with old patterns." There is a huge responsibility with living well, essentially being proactive about how your live vs being reactionary.
The closing chapter, Walking in the Spirit, is not only about being able to connect with a higher power, but healing oneself in solitude. A black woman should embrace oneness as a time to hear God, to renew our spirit. I am definitely in favor of feeling my best, so I can present positive energy to people I encounter and the community at large.
18 reviews1 follower
July 27, 2009
recovery for all...and thoughts for a new path forward
Profile Image for Jo.
157 reviews
May 21, 2023
Take small bites of this book, and chew thoroughly.
16 reviews2 followers
Read
May 27, 2020
Exceptionally written self-help for book for black women. It is comprehensive and deep, and yet approachable for the reader. hooks explores are trauma and is honest about what it will take for us to heal.
Profile Image for Chelsea.
986 reviews21 followers
March 18, 2022
Even though the target audience is black women, I learned a lot from this book. There’s a lot of good info for general self-recovery, and I also learned a lot about black women’s experiences in a white man’s world. hooks has an easy to follow writing style and deftly pulls quotes from reliable sources, so that it feels like sitting down and listening to an interesting conversation.
Profile Image for Bete Boe.
91 reviews81 followers
March 11, 2021
Ik wilde alles onthouden en opschrijven wat ik las. Wat een geweldig boek. En tevens het eerste zelfhulp boek dat ik las dat specifiek geadresseerd werd aan Zwarte vrouwen.
Profile Image for J. Ferg.
30 reviews
March 11, 2024
bell hooks explores the holistic wellness and needs of Black Womxn at the intersection of racism and sexism. for this piece to be published when i was two years old, yet speak to my current lived experiences at 31, is true prophetic work. this will be a piece i come back to often.

fyi: this isn’t your “mainstream” feminism work

everyone should read this, especially Black Womxn.

18 reviews5 followers
December 22, 2019
Excellent book. I have been interested in hooks’ writing about recovery and healing, and of recovery literature.
Profile Image for Lethabo Mailula.
22 reviews2 followers
September 21, 2022
An absolute required read for Black women that provides an urgent call for collective healing. One to return to repeatedly to learn lessons about surviving as a Black woman in a white supremacist capitalist and patriarchal world. Lessons on love, gentleness, truth telling and self-care that is not anchored in superficial practices that are ultimately healthy and do not contribute to recovery.
Profile Image for Elizabeth.
131 reviews
November 6, 2023
This is an excellent book on self-reflection and self-improvement. While it is specifically written for black women, I found it incredibly helpful for myself as well. Plus, I learned a great deal about black culture and feel so much compassion for the challenges black women may be experiencing in a white-dominated culture.

My biggest takeaway is the power of love - love for God, self, and others. Even in the simplicity of this concept, it's always a great reminder to reflect on how I'm doing at loving. I would argue that everyone in pain (emotional or physical) is simply in need of love, relatedness, and community. Living in isolation is deadly to the soul.

Another huge takeaway is the importance of naming your pain. As Hooks writes, "There is no healing in silence." Additionally, "Our mental well-being is dependent on our capacity to face reality. We can only face reality by breaking through denial." From my experience, it seems that all emotions live on in our bodies until they have completed their cycle. Painful emotions need to be expressed. Otherwise, they will live inside us and, likely, lead to illness or other side effects like passive aggressiveness, road rage, etc. One last insightful quote about this: In blocking off what hurts us, we think we are walling ourselves off from pain. But in the long run, the wall, which prevents growth, hurts us more than the pain, which, if we will only bear it, soon passes over us. Washes over us and is gone.

Other great quotes:
"They knew joy, that feeling that comes from using one's powers to the fullest."

"But we can practice being gentle with each other by being gentle with that piece of ourselves that is hardest to hold, by giving more to the brave bruised girlchild within each of us, by expecting a little less from her gargantuan efforts to excel."

"A body that knows how to die well, will know how to live well."
Profile Image for Lisa.
198 reviews5 followers
March 25, 2018
While I'm definitely not the target audience of this book, I really appreciated it. Her writing style flows wonderfully and she always connects ideas in a new and interesting way for me. I read bell hooks more interested in the historical/social analysis of rascism in her writings, but the way it was paired with the importance of self-care and personal recovery in this book was a new side of things I hadn't thought of before.
Profile Image for Rachel Atakpa.
40 reviews1 follower
July 22, 2019
imperative read for everyone.

engages mental illness, ecology, addiction, right livelihood (work/labor), beauty, reconciliation, etc.

names a nexus of critical affirmation, communal survival, regeneration, and love as self-recovery

“when we choose to heal, when we choose to love, we are choosing liberation.”

Profile Image for Jamia.
Author 30 books163 followers
April 30, 2008
womanist theology at its best. this book has healing power. i refer to it again and again, to remain empowered, focused, strong, and loving... the perfect merging of political call to action and self-help book. hooks is amazing.
Profile Image for Travis Martin.
4 reviews1 follower
Read
April 21, 2011
really thought-provoking. (secretly i used this to bait feminist black girls on the subway. no one bit!)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 150 reviews

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