by Hooks, Bell
There is a pervasive impoverishment of the spirit in American society, and especially among Black people. Historically, there have been cultural forces and traditions, like the church, that held cold-heartedness and mean-spiritedness at bay. However, today’s impoverishment of the spirit means that this coldness and meanness is becoming more and more pervasive. The church kept these forces at bay by promoting a sense of respect for others, a sense of solidarity, a sense of meaning and value which would usher in the strength to battle against evil.
Life-sustaining political communities can provide a similar space for the renewal of the spirit. That can happen only if we address the needs of the spirit in progressive political theory and practice.
Often when Cornel West and I speak with large groups of black folks about the impoverishment of spirit in black life, the lovelessness, sharing that we can collectively recover ourselves in love, the response is overwhelming. Folks want to know how to begin the practice of loving. For me that is where education for critical consciousness has to enter. When I look at my life, searching it for a blueprint that aided me in the process of decolonization, of personal and political self-recovery, I know that it was learning the truth about how systems of domination operate that helped, learning to look both inward and outward with a critical eye. Awareness is central to the process of love as the practice of freedom. Whenever those of us who are members of exploited and oppressed groups dare to critically interrogate our locations, the identities and allegiances that inform how we live our lives, we begin the process of decolonization. If we discover in ourselves self-hatred, low self-esteem, or internalized white supremacist thinking and we face it, we can begin to heal. Acknowledging the truth of our reality, both individual and collective, is a necessary stage for personal and political growth. This is usually the most painful stage in the process of learning to love—the one many of us seek to avoid. Again, once we choose love, we instinctively possess the inner resources to confront that pain. Moving through the pain to the other side we find the joy, the freedom of spirit that a love ethic brings.
Choosing love we also choose to live in community, and that means that we do not have to change by ourselves. We can count on critical affirmation and dialogue with comrades walking a similar path. African American theologian Howard Thurman believed that we best learn love as the practice of freedom in the context of community. Commenting on this aspect of his work in the essay “Spirituality out on The Deep,” Luther Smith reminds us that Thurman felt the United States was given to diverse groups of people by the universal life force as a location for the building of community. Paraphrasing Thurman, he writes: “Truth becomes true in community. The social order hungers for a center (i.e. spirit, soul) that gives it identity, power, and purpose. America, and all cultural entities, are in search of a soul.” Working within community, whether it be sharing a project with another person, or with a larger group, we are able to experience joy in struggle. That joy needs to be documented. For if we only focus on the pain, the difficulties which are surely real in any process of transformation, we only show a partial picture.
A love ethic emphasizes the importance of service to others. Within the value system of the United States any task or job that is related to “service” is devalued. Service strengthens our capacity to know compassion and deepens our insight. To serve another I cannot see them as an object, I must see their subject-hood. Sharing the teaching of Shambala warriors, Buddhist Joanna Macy writes that we need weapons of compassion and insight.
You have to have compassion because it gives you the juice, the power, the passion to move. When you open to the pain of the world you move, you act. But that weapon is not enough. It can burn you out, so you need the other—you need insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. With that wisdom you know that it is not a battle between good guys and bad guys, but that the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. With insight into our profound interrelatedness, you know that actions undertaken with pure intent have repercussions throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern.
Macy shares that compassion and insight can “sustain us as agents of wholesome change” for they are “gifts for us to claim now in the healing of our world.” In part, we learn to love by giving service. This is again a dimension of what Peck means when he speaks of extending ourselves for another.
The civil rights movement had the power to transform society because the individuals who struggle alone and in community for freedom and justice wanted these gifts to be for all, not just the suffering and the oppressed. Visionary black leaders such as Septima Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Howard Thurman warned again isolationism. They encouraged black people to look beyond our own circumstances and assume responsibility for the planet. This call for communion with a world beyond the self, the tribe, the race, the nation, was a constant invitation for personal expansion and growth. When masses of black folks starting thinking solely in terms of “us and them,” internalizing the value system of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, blind spots developed, the capacity for empathy needed for the building of community was diminished. To heal our wounded body politic we must reaffirm our commitment to a vision of what King referred to in the essay “Facing the Challenge of a New Age” as a genuine commitment to “freedom and justice for all.” My heart is uplifted when I read King’s essay; I am reminded where true liberation leads us. It leads us beyond resistance to transformation. King tells us that “the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community.” The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.
INDEX
Abernathy, Ralph 74–5
addiction 271–2
African American art history 29
African voyages to America, before Columbian 233, 235–6
Afrocentrism 98, 213
Ain’t I a Woman (hooks) 83, 274
Alderman, Marie-France 43–60
Ali, Shahrazad 98, 219
Almodóvar, Pedro 59
Amadeus (film) 56
Amerikka’s Most Wanted (Ice Cube) 145–6
Amish Quilt, The 285, 286
Angry Women (Juno and Vale) 49, 243–4
anonymity in feminism 107
antifeminist backlash 86–8, 105, 125, 135
anti-Semitism 80
antisex conservative gender rights propaganda 93
Ariès, Philippe 267
Art of the Maasai, The (Turle) 32, 41
Artforum 29
Asian women 257
Atwater, Lee 260–1
Audubon Ballroom 226
Australian bark painting 31
Autobiography of Malcolm X, The (Haley) 186
Bad Lieutenant, The (film) 142
Baker, Josephine 24
Baldwin, James 32, 192, 273
“Ballot or the Bullet, The” (Malcolm X) 217
Baraka, Amiri 184
Barnard College 254
Basquiat, Gerard 38
Basquiat, Jean-Michel: and black body 30–2; and Eurocentrism 28–9; and jazz 35–6; longing for fame 33–4, 36; parents 38–9; Whitney exhibition 27–8, 39–41
Basquiat, Matilde 38–9
Bassett, Angela 45
Baudrillard, Jean 271
beauty 202–13, 285
Beauty Myth, The (Wolf) 110, 119
Bernhard, Sandra 56
Berry, Chuck 260
Between Borders (Giroux and McLaren) 4
Billops, Camille 52–3
Birth of a Nation (film) 135
“Black America” (Marable) 128
“Black and White All Over” (Penizzi) 37
Black Film Review 182
black liberation 75, 76–7, 84, 202–4
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nbsp; Black Looks: Race and Representation (hooks) 43, 45, 73, 78, 89, 231, 235, 281
black Madonna 10, 11, 21
black men: as disenfranchised 129; and fear of whites 252–3; and grief 159; relations with black women 129–33, 161–7, 209–11, 226–8; as subject to dominant culture values 135–9
Black Power movement 76, 203–4, 208, 291
Black Studies 3, 4, 7
black women: in academe 276–7; and beauty 202–13; and bonding 254–5; in rap music 162–3; relations with Asian women 257; relations with black men 129–33, 161–7, 209–11, 226–8; representations in film 44–60, 65, 184–6, 210; and stress 261–2; and white drag 210
Blackman’s Guide, The (Ali) 219
blackness: criticism of 82; love of 73, 211; shame of 266; in white imagination 36, 63
blondness 22, 148
Bloom, Harold 97
“Blues for Mr. Spielberg” (Wallace) 183–4
Bluest Eye, The (Morrison) 251
Bly, Robert 143
body rights 86, 131
Bodyguard, The (film) 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 63–72
Bomb magazine 64
Bomb Squad, The 146
Boomerang (film) 197
border crossing 5–6, 7
Bordo, Susan 14
Bosnia 50
“Boys Will Be Girls” (Tyler) 24
Boyz N the Hood (film) 153
Braithwaite, Fred 29, 35, 41
Brother from Another Planet (film) 58
Brownmiller, Susan 110
Burnett, Charles 58
Butler, Judith 122
By Any Means Necessary (Lee) 186, 188
Campbell, Naomi 24, 97, 210
Campion, Jane 139, 141
Canadian government 73
capitalism: in “new feminism” 114–15; and poverty 199; not self-determination 146, 173
Capra, Fritjof 269
censorship: within black intellectual life 74–84, 177–8; by Far Right 74; in feminism 75–84, 110, 117; on the left 76; Malcolm X 221–2; of the self 80–4
Centuries of Childhood (Ariès) 267–8
Chapman, Tracy 210
“Charles the First” (Basquiat) 34
children 1–2, 8, 148–9, 165–6, 211, 249, 268
Christianity 268–9
Chua, Lawrence 64, 68
church, black 144, 196
City of Hope (film) 58
civil rights movement 290–1
Clark, Septima 297
Class (Fussell) 169
class in black life 6, 20–1, 74–5, 169–79, 193–201
Cleaver, Eldridge 206
Clinton administration 144
Coleman, Wanda 257
colonialism: black bodies and 68; internalized 173, 202, 260; as masculine 237–8; as mindset 6
color caste systems 203–13
Color Purple, The (film) 183
Columbus, Christopher 232–42
“Columbus Debate” (Hogan) 240
“Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress” (Zinn) 236, 237
commodification of blackness 173, 174, 178, 190
commonality of feeling 256
communities 1–2, 236, 263–4, 278, 296
Cone, James 219–20
confessional 265–6
confidence 78–9
conservatives, black 74, 213
constructive contestation 84, 118, 127
consumerism among blacks 147–8
Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Rorty) 278
“conversion process” 112
Cosby Show 160
Costner, Kevin 48, 49, 64, 65, 66, 69, 72
Crenshaw, Kimberlé 122
Cress-Welsing, Frances 157, 158
cross-dressing 246–7
“Crowns (Peso Neto)” (Basquiat) 34
Crying Game, The (film) 44, 48, 49, 59, 63–72
cultural studies 2, 3–5, 7, 64, 98, 190
Culture of Poverty, The (Stack) 199
Curie, Marie 269
Dalai Lama 284
Dances with Wolves (film) 48, 280–1
date rape 109, 121
Davidson, Jaye 65
Davis, Angela 207, 225
death 244–5
Death Certificate (Ice Cube) 145–6
degradation, sex as 94
deinstitutionalization of learning 275
denial 288
desire as replacement for struggle 49, 60
destiny 268
difference 49, 56, 88, 258–9
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Foucault) 275
dissent 118, 123, 124, 127
Doggystyle (Snoop Doggy Dogg) 138
domination: acceptance of 173; addiction and 272; colonization 233–4; culture of 287–8; eroticized 141; gangsta rap and 135; Madonna and 25; marginalized communities 277; movements to end 84, 290; privacy and 265; repudiation of 7, 239
Dr. Dre 178
drag 210, 246–7
drugs 272–3
Dubois, Shirley Graham 228
Duke, David 128
Dworkin, Andrea 87, 110
Dyer, Richard 21, 22, 189
Early, Gerald 191
“eating the other” 68, 88
Ebony 64
eco-feminism 200
Edward, Robert 31
Einstein, Albert 269
Eisenstein, Zillah 107
Elijah Muhammad 148, 187, 218, 225, 227
Elle 240
Emerge magazine 225
Entertainment Weekly 22, 63
Esprit collection 285, 286
Esquire 86, 88–9, 92, 94
Europe 9–10, 67
“Everybody’s Protest Novel” (Baldwin) 192
“Facing the Challenge of a New Age” (King) 297
Falling Down (film) 50–1, 52
Fanon, Frantz 202
Farley, Christopher John 138
femininity 21
feminism: anonymity versus fame 106–7; censorship 75–84; competitiveness within 86, 126; conservatism 101–3; depoliticized 114–15; and identity 247; and Madonna 11–26; and Malcolm X 214–30; and the mass media 86–95, 125, 143; and naming tragedies 250; and passion 44; political practice of 108, 118–19; race/class difference in 88–9, 109, 112, 120–7, 203, 274; as radical/revolutionary 105, 112; as sentimentalized 122; and sexuality 59, 85–95; and Thelma and Louise 54; thinkers 107–9
Feminist Fatale (Kamen) 123
Feminist Theory (hooks) 111, 122
film: as antirevolutionary 52; class in 175–6; hooks as critic of 43–4; images of black life in 45–58, 137, 175–6, 183–92, 281–2; interracial sex in 61, 64–72, 184–5; Malcolm X in 181–92; and male violence 137, 140; poverty in 197
Finding Christa (film) 52–3
Fire Next Time, The (Baldwin) 32, 273
Fire with Fire (Wolf) 109–10, 111, 112–13, 115, 116
First World mind-set, losing 284
Fishburne, Laurence 45, 46
Fisher King, The (film) 57
Foreign Bodies (Napier) 37
Foucault, Michel 275
Frankenberg, Ruth 108
Freedman, Jonathan 199, 201
freedom 289–98
Freeman, Al Jr. 187
Friend, Tad 86, 88–91, 95
From Cradle to Grave (Freedman) 199
Fuss, Diana 122
Fussell, Paul 169
gangsta culture 134–44
“Gangsta Rap, Doggystyle” (Farley) 138
gangster, myth of 51, 137
“gaslighting” 56, 66, 279–80
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. 74, 80–1
gay black sub-culture 97, 260
gayness 17–18, 21
genetic annihilation 151, 157
Gere, Richard 197
Giroux, Henry 4
Goldberg, Whoopi 282
Gopnik, Adam 28, 35
Gregory, Carol 260
grief 159, 240, 292
Griffin, Susan 26
Guérillères, Les (Wittig) 283
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Gulf War 280, 284
hair: loss 46, 262; natural hairstyle 205, 207; straight 51, 209; weaves 210; wigs 97, 206, 210
Hall, Albert 186
Hall, Stuart 3–4, 7
Halloween (film) 251
Hamer, Fannie Lou 217, 226, 228, 229, 297
Hanh, Thich Nhat 258, 263, 277, 278, 283
Haraway, Donna 107, 269
Harlem Nights (film) 197
Harper’s 191
Heavenly Bodies (Dyer) 189
“Hidden Rage of Successful Blacks, The” (Newsweek) 177
Hill, Anita 77–8, 99, 113–14
hip-hop 190
Hitchcock, Alfred 57, 267, 279
“’ho” role 65, 69
Hogan, Linda 240
Hollywood: absences in 281; black actresses 45; black female characters 48, 187; interracial sex 61–72; mixed-race characters 62; Spike Lee 187, 281; white supremacist aesthetic 21, 63, 65, 280–1
Homegirls (anthology) 82–3
homoeroticism 15–16
homosexual images 15–18
hooks, bell: childhood 1, 170, 194–5, 205, 244–5, 248, 269–70; current life of 146, 164, 170–1, 195, 270; education 1, 85–6, 171, 194, 195–6; as educator 3–4, 171, 197–8, 201, 274–5; Esquire interview 86–95; as feminist 107–8, 170; interviews with 43–60, 145–68, 243–88; pseudonym 107; spiritual practice 277–8; young adulthood 9–11, 85–6, 107–8, 170, 267
Hopkinsville, Kentucky 270
Hord, Fred Lee 172–3
horror films 251
Houston, Whitney 45, 48, 49, 65
Howard Beach incident 252
Hughes, Allen and Albert 175–6
Hurston, Zora Neale 55
I, Tina (Turner) 45
Ice Cube 137–8, 145–68
Ice-T 150
identity politics 70
Imitation of Life (film) 63
imperialism and patriarchy 238–9
incest 249–50
Indecent Proposal 142
“insider feminism” 110
integration 205
intellectuals as censors 76–8, 174, 199–200