In Sandoval essays on love, titled “Love as a Hermeneutics of Social Change, a Decolonizing Movida,” much of the piece is spent talking about the ways in which love can be and has been politically charged. The way that love can revolutionize and the way the love and redefine the way social movements function and operate. The concept really challenged my understandings of love. I think because of the way we describe love in media (movies, tv, music, art), I’ve always thought of love as something that goes untouched by the dominant ideology that gifts us with so much prejudice and hatred. At the same time, I think it is something we commonly (mis)understand: that love is a healing power that can help us overcome the very prejudice that wedged between us in the first place. We see these (often misguided) attempts as using love as a healing power in movies that celebrate interracial relationships. Or in media objects that suggest interracial love is the kind of love that fixes racism. Sandoval really challenged my thoughts on how love can be influenced by dominant ideology, but also in the ways that love can challenge ideology back (obviously not via the misguided understandings of interracial love as a magical problem-solver for racism). As this is my last blog post, this is something that I will continue to think on after the class ends. If love has the power to revolutionize, what practical ways can we approach such a love.
