"I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect." -- June Jordan

Our lives DO depend on self-love and self-respect, though. If we do not love ourselves, how do we take care of ourselves? How do we sacrifice and strive for ourselves without respecting ourselves? But the imperative nature of self-love and self-respect don't describe Blackness or a feminist identity to me...they describe the human condition. We need to love and respect ourselves like we need to breathe and eat and think.