Bell Hooks Wisdom Bell Hooks,

Bell Hooks Wisdom

Bell Hooks, Born Gloria Watkins on September 25th 1952, is a prolific black activist, writer and scholar. Her works have sent shockwaves through the feminist and black activism arenas. She demonstrates a keen awareness of the contradictions of life and discrimination. Probably, her most famous written work is Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981), where she equates racial discrimination to sexism, challenges the feminist camps to begin to include black women in the fight for women's rights and most importantly challenges black women to fight as adamantly for feminism as they have for racial civil rights. As an interesting anecdote, Gloria Watkins is still Hooks' legal name but she chose a writing persona early on in her career and is known by most people by her writer's voice and name Bell Hooks, which is a testament to her mother and grandmother who both shared the name in some form. (Carney Smith & Phelps, 1996, p. 297) bell hooks (nee Gloria Watkins) is Distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York. Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1952, hooks, received her B.A. from Stanford University in 1973, her M.A. In 1976 from the University of Wisconsin and her Ph.D. In 1983 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Although hooks is mainly known as a feminist thinker, her writings cover a broad range of topics on gender, race, teaching and the significance of media for contemporary culture. She strongly believes that these topics cannot be dealt with as separately, but must be understood as being interconnectedness. As an example, she refers to the idea of a "White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy" and its interconnectedness, rather than to its more traditionally separated and component parts. (Provenzo, ND, NP)

Through this encompassing ideology Hooks demonstrates significant wisdom, in her ability to integrate complex models as well as in general as a great social reformer.

Hooks is a prolific writer whose works are as varied as her life. A text that I found particularly telling of her wisdom is her work Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994). In this work one sees the synthesis of many years as a thinker and educator, integrating many of her works into a pedagogy of education that better serves a multi-cultural society. Two other memorable works that are indicative of Hooks' development as a writer and a purveyor of wisdom are Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995) and Where We Stand: Class Matters (2000), both of which challenge traditional conceptions of race, culture and class and attempt to develop ideals that further the thoughts and actions of human kind. These four works are really only the tip of the iceberg, with regard to Hooks' works as she crosses genre, working on both prose and poetry, theory, non-fiction, fiction, lecture tours and even more modern media assimilations of recorded interviews and films. Hooks, is noted as one of the most important intellectuals of our day.

It is rare, that an individual, while still living is so celebrated and studied, as the majority of biographical works are written or at the very least published posthumously and yet Bell Hooks has been recognized with several essential biographical studies as well as a whole score of literary, political and scholarly criticism. Secondary, to Hooks' own autobiographical works, Bone Black: Memoirs of a Girlhood (1996) Wounds of Passion: The Writing Life (1997) are many published works by other writers who build upon and further her theories of gender, class, culture and race as constant schematic themes in humanity, just a few of those are mentioned here; Fox, Tom. "Literacy and Activism: A Response to bell hooks." Journal of Advanced Composition 14.2 (Fall 1994): 564-70. Middleton, Joyce Irene. "bell hooks on Literacy and Teaching: A Response." Journal of Advanced Composition 14.2 (Fall 1994): 558-64. Olson, Gary and Elizabeth Hirsh. "Feminist Praxis and the Politics of Literacy: A Conversation with bell hooks." Women Writing Culture. ed. Olson and Hirsh. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. 105-137. Thomson, Clive. "Culture, Identity, and the Dialogic: bell hooks and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak." Dialogism and Cultural Criticism. ed. Thomson and Hans Raj Dua. London: Mestengo, 1995. 47-64. Jones, Lisa. "Rebel Without a Pause." Village Voice Literary Supplement. Oct. 1992. Florence, Namulundah. Bell Hooks' engaged pedagogy: a transgressive education for critical consciousness Critical studies in education and culture series. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 1998.

Scholars and laymen and women alike find Hooks fascinating and engaging and her theories indicative of a modern translation of wisdom and vision, regarding some of the most pressing social issues of the modern world. Hooks, most astounding character trait is her ability to see contradictions in social and public policy and propose solutions and standards to address such contradictions, yet another aspect of her wisdom is the development of theory and practical criticism of a broad variety of knowledge-based ideals, including feminism, racism, education, poverty and many other social and political controversies.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the theory and/or opinions of Bell Hooks, it is clear that she is easily defined as wise. Wisdom is an essential human element which has been fundamentally studied and debated for centuries but is not necessarily easy to define. Some scholars express that the study of wisdom began as early as the writings of the bible and other traditional culturally derived sources of faith, with regard to living ones life in accordance with the needs and roles life sets forth for you, allowing change to percolate, when it is needed and recognize the needs of an evolving society for change. (Brown, 2000, p. 15-19) the most logical manner in which to describe the wisdom of Bell Hooks is through the assimilation of a collective definitions of implicit psychological theories of wisdom which are described by Baltes & Staudinger as having five general characteristics:

Wisdom is a concept that carries specific meaning that is widely shared and understood in its language-based representation. For instance, wisdom is clearly distinct from other wisdom-related psychological concepts such as social intelligence, maturity, or sagacity. (2) Wisdom is judged to be an exceptional level of human functioning. It is related to excellence and ideals of human development. (3) Wisdom identifies a state of mind and behavior that includes the coordinated and balanced interplay of intellectual, affective, and emotional aspects of human functioning. (4) Wisdom is viewed as associated with a high degree of personal and interpersonal competence including the ability to listen, evaluate, and to give advice. (5) Wisdom involves good intentions. It is used for the well-being of oneself and others. (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000, p.122)

Utilizing, an implicit definition of wisdom is particularly fitting for Bell Hooks as she historically expresses the idea that even from very early on her character led her to question accepted contexts of being, and especially so when they contradicted her own rational thought and the "way things were supposed to be," fair, equal and representative of self. She tells an interesting story with regard to how theory became a liberalizing practice, even when she was very young. In the fifth chapter of Teaching to Transgress she discusses the fact that she remembers having a conversation with her mother where she tried to sway her to a theory that went something like this; father should not have the authority to punish me because I barely know him, as a result of the fact that he is always working, to support the family and the patriarchal ideal of one working parent (the father) and one stay at home parent (the nurturing mother). Though she as an adult, felt for her mother as she thought back to what it must have felt like to have such an "alien" as a child in a difficult time, yet she still recognizes that her implicit ideals surrounded questioning the status quo and challenging the disparate world around her and she did and does so fervently and frequently. (1994, p. 59-60)

Working on the same theme as Hooks childhood, and adult synopsis of it demonstrates the Hooks is intensely insightful about the manner in which she learned, as child and the way it shaped her wisdom and development. "I went to school at a historical moment where I was being taught by the same teachers who had taught my mother, her sisters, and brothers." (1994, p. 3) These teachers were engaged with those they recognized as gifted (such as Hooks). They involved themselves in the lives of the children, knew their parents, and foresaw these children as the next generation of change agents for their culture and that of the oppressors. They were all also recognized by Hooks as not only black women but revolutionary black women who taught the pedagogy of revolution and change, in much the same way Paulo Freire envisioned teachers in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as revolutionary change agents who taught students to challenge the status quo and unite as a race of oppressed peoples. (pp.45-58) Hooks also recognized that when integration occurred these change agents were alienated from black children and alienation and discrimination ensued, associated with being taught white history and democratic ideals, rather than reformation of education, which was the intention. (p. 3)

Both perspective childhood stories imply implicit as well as environmental (explicit) characteristics of wisdom, as Hooks acknowledges that she may have been singled out, as a child of a certain class, gender and race but it may have been because people recognized her implicit character of wisdom and potential. Hooks, by virtue of watching people in her own community live out characteristics of patriarchal ideals demonstrates wisdom far beyond the years she reflects upon. In this phenomena, as reflected by Bell Hooks' experiential learning and reflection, one can clearly see the implicit-explicit dichotomy, discussed in Sternberg and Jordan's a Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological Perspectives. In this work the idea of wisdom as something that is internal and external as well as innate and developed through life and learning experiences. (p. 89)

An insightful comment regarding the myth of progress in integration in education and elsewhere can be found in Hooks work, Where We Stand: Class Matters;

Along with the revamped myth that everyone who worked hard could rise from the bottom of our nation s class hierarchy to the top was the insistence that the old notions of oppressor class and oppressed class were no longer meaningful, because when it came to the issue of material longing, the poor, working, and middle classes desired the same things that the rich desired, including the desire to exercise power over others. What better proof of this could there be than calling attention to the reality that individuals from marginal groups who had been left out of the spheres of class power entered these arenas and conducted themselves in the same manner as the established groups -- "the good old boys." Once the public could be duped into thinking that the gates of class power and privilege were truly opened for everyone, then there was no longer a need for an emphasis on communalism or sharing resources, for ongoing focus on social justice. (Hooks, 2000, p. 66)

In many ways the wisdom of Hooks insight can be seen as self evident to the idea that contradictions that hold back society in broad and narrow context are seen everywhere and that integration of people, in the patriarchal hierarchical form is not a true representation of equality but an unfortunate stage in desensitizing the world to things that really matter, the ideals that they espouse but do not necessarily live by and might even alter with regard to assimilated perceived needs.

More importantly, there was ample evidence among token marginal individuals who entered the ranks of ruling class privilege that they, like their mainstream counterparts, could be bought -- could and would succumb to the corrupting temptations of greed. The way had been paved to bring to the masses the message that excess was acceptable. Greed was the order of the day, and to make a profit by any means necessary was merely to live out to the fullest degree the American work ethic. In relation to the poor and underclass, this permission to indulge in excess fostered and perpetuated the infiltration into previously stable communities, especially black communities, a predatory capitalist-based drug culture that would bring money for luxuries to a few, a symbolic ruling class. (hooks, 2000, p. 66)

Impetus for contradiction mongering are seen all over the culture, with regard to race, class and gender and Hooks' wisdom pervades these contradictions and challenges her readers and contemporaries to rethink what motivates their actions and the actions of others, to better meet the needs of society and allow everyone greater opportunity to succeed in a way and arena that is not supportive of the status quo.

Wisdom, according to Lawrence Hinman in Understanding Wisdom: Sources Science and Society the need to see the world in such a way that an individual can learn to become wise is essential to the development of wisdom, thus again supporting the implicit explicit dichotomy, which again is reflected in the manner in which Hooks, sees the world and learns and teaches within it. (p. 413-420)

Hooks' wisdom is again reflected in her ability to challenge preconceived notions of race, class and the dominant patriarchal society in a work that few individuals in this culture would be brave enough to write, or at least write in the manner which she did. The work itself is about African-American masculinity and how it evolved through oppression to match the ideal standards of white patriarchal society, as an oppressive and isolated source of power and freedom. Hooks notes that black men from Africa had to be enmeshed in the ideals of white patriarchal society in order to express this ideal as a standard for power and freedom.

When we read annals of history, the autobiographical writings of free and enslaved black men, it is revealed that initially black males did not see themselves as sharing the same stand-point as white men about the nature of masculinity. Transplanted African men, even those coming from communi- ties where sex roles shaped the division of labor, where the status of men was different and most times higher than that of women, had to be taught to equate their higher status as men with the right to dominate women, they had to be taught patriarchal masculinity. They had to be taught that it was acceptable to use violence to establish patriarchal power. The gender politics of slavery and white-supremacist domination of free black men was the school where black men from different African tribes, with different languages and value systems, learned in the "new world," patriarchal masculinity. (Hooks, 2004, pp. 2-3)

Violence for Hooks, was not an innate ideal of African male identities for the establishment of power, and this is especially true with regard to violence against women, that Hooks contends is learned behavior that has been significantly pervasive and destructive to black male identities since slavery.

Writing about the evolution of black male involvement in patriarchal masculinity in the essay "Reconstructing Black Masculinity" I write: Although the gendered politics of slavery denied black men the freedom to act as "men" within the definition set by white norms, this notion of manhood did become a standard used to measure black male progress. (Hooks, 2004, p. 3)

To support these observations, Hooks utilizes slave and free black narratives that seem to assimilate the ideals of the white oppressive patriarchal society in the same manner that poor people (in black communities) have embraced the white patriarchal ideals of excess and consumerism, even beyond their own means and to the point of their own destruction. The stark contrast of the ability of black men, as oppressed individuals to challenge those who displayed violence against women loved ones gave black men explicit permission to themselves engage in violence as a means of power attainment.

The narratives of Henry "Box" Brown, Josiah Henson, Frederick Douglass, and a host of other black men reveal that they saw "freedom" as that change in status that would enable them to fulfill the role of chivalric benevolent patriarch. Free, they would be men able to provide for and take care of their families. Describing how he wept as watched a white slave overseer beat his mother, William Wells Brown lamented, "Experience has taught me that nothing can be more heart-rending than for one to see a dear and beloved mother or sister tortured, and to hear their cries and not be able to render them assistance. But such is the position which an American slave occupies." Frederick Douglass did not feel his manhood affirmed by intellectual progress. It was affirmed when he fought man to man with the slave overseer. This struggle was a "turning point" in Douglass's life: "It rekindled in my breast the smoldering embers of liberty. It brought up my Baltimore dreams and revived a sense of my own manhood. I was a changed being after that fight. I was nothing before-I was a man now." (Hooks, 2004, p. 3)

Black men in short felt weak in comparison to white men and therefore learned and utilized their own tactics to respond to the helplessness of oppression, oppression which continues today as a development of class and race struggles, reduced opportunity and stereotyping. There are few scholars of race and power who would have the insight and bravery needed to make these claims within a society that so easily stereotypes and therefore negates black male expressions of violence.

Hooks, though does not stop here, as in her work Killing Rage: Ending Racism she challenges the learned behavior of her culture to blame white society and therefore reduce culpability for individual and collective actions that are contrary to disintegrating these patriarchal ideals and therefore all the violence and misunderstanding that goes with them. " We're just saying that he was not responsible for his own conduct. We're saying white racism is to blame." Already a carnivalesque aura surrounds public debate about black rage." (1995, p. 25) Hooks repeatedly assassinates people for not taking responsibility for their own actions and/or scapegoating behavior to a "weaker" people. One of her most ardent claims in the work is that black women have been repeatedly scapegoated as the blame source for the destruction of black culture in American society, as white and black men alike seek to blame these women for allowing the family to become fragmented and even allowing herself to become a victim of violence and allowing through necessity the development of a system where black men are no longer needed to support the family and can then therefore be free to remove themselves from it. (p. 82-84, 90, 199, 209) Hooks here demonstrates through wisdom, that such assumptions are not only faulty they continue to erode at the core of black American culture and allow challenges to constantly arise that support oppression and social and cultural destruction. Hooks, calls on individuals an in some way the broader culture to see the destruction of black culture as a symptom of historical bad behavior on the part of everyone involved, rather than as something that can be blamed on one side or the other. To this end she calls on individuals to open their eyes and reform their actions to elicit change, rather than by allowing the patriarchal oppressive "system" to continue to define and stereotype black culture. As a reflection of Hooks frequent feminist slant she discusses the idea in context of women activists, who have ultimately failed, over the years to disestablish connectivity in the white/black female struggle for an end to racism and sexism, i.e. A cultural embrace of feminism, "As long as white and black women are content with living separately in a state of psychic social apartheid, racism will not change. If women willingly allow racist/sexist thinking to shape our relationships with one another, we cannot blame patriarchy for keeping us apart. Interrogating female xenophobia (fear of difference) must be a significant part of future struggles to end racism and sexism." (p. 224) Hooks, continues here to espouse the idea that feminism, when created and acted upon in the true sense of its merit will be the change agent needed to resolve the conflict associated with race and many other social disparities. This is a theme that one can see in all her works as she challenges the status quo for the betterment of society as a whole.

Throughout the history of struggles to end racism in the United States, men have been heralded as the primary leaders. Everyone in our society is more familiar with the names of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X than Septima Clark and Fannie Lou Hamer. From slavery to the present day, individual white and black women have dared to break with white supremacy and patriarchy to make a space for friendship and political solidarity. (p. 224)