Talking Back: Remembering bell hooks
“. . . dissidents are anchored to revolutionary possibilities that demand both intellectual discipline and irrepressible courage to speak the unspeakable, to stand alone if necessary, and to accept the material and emotional consequences of tramping over hegemony’s “holy” ground.”Antonia Darder, 2011 “Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited. […]
Teaching to Refuse & Reclaim: A Letter of Gratitude to bell hooks
Dear Teacher, I never imagined that I’d have an opportunity to thank you or formally consider the worlds your wisdom made possible. Naturally, I am struck by feelings of humility in this address, as I try to tap into the bravery that you taught me is necessary for existing and becoming as well as the […]
A Collective Call to Rupture Academic English: Reflections on “Language: Teaching New Worlds/New Words”
Academic English is often antagonistic to writing with whije:’.[1] Writing with my spirit is just one of the many lessons bell hooks has taught me. English tried to break the spirit of my ancestors; it was forced into their minds to separate them from what made them Na:tinixwe.[2] As a direct result of this violence, […]
bell hooks: Feminism as the Transformational Work of Love
In her groundbreaking essay “Feminism: A Transformational Politic,” bell hooks boldly declares, “Embedded in the commitment to feminist revolution is the challenge to love” (hooks 1989, 26). These words, and her recognition of love as the defining quality of feminism, resonated with me immediately and drew me deeply to her work. This was the message […]
Trusting in the Power of Compassion
“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?” (Angelou, hooks, and McLeod 1998). Spoken in an interview, these words highlight bell hooks’s broadest legacy, one increasingly […]
bell hooks said “No Black woman writer…can write too much”: A Black Feminist Reflection
I write like I need air to breathe, water to drink, and the sun to make my deep brown skin glow—the same shade of melanin as so many Black women I know. Writing for me was never really a choice, it just was. It just is a part of me, of the women who came […]
Teaching to Transgress
Loveis on the syllabus.You will feel itwhen you come into our classroomseyes downwardthinking you aretoo muchyour voice your styleso loud all wrong.Look up.Speak out.There is only this momentto beto be together.We will hear youwe will hold youbecause she taught ushowher wordsa hook piercing through our skina bell sounding in our earstolling tellingthat on the final […]
bell hooks: In Life, In Memoriam, and A Few Lessons She Taught Me as a Feminist Educator and Black Gay Man
The Black feminist and radical intellectual bell hooks joined the ancestors on December 15, a day before my thirty-seventh birthday. When I read news of her death that morning, I experienced a range of emotions: grief, certainly, but also peace, love, and gratitude. For a moment, admittedly, I was bereft as I experienced states of […]
Examining Blackness
It was my first year in my PhD program at the University of Minnesota. I was taking a course focused on culture and teaching that was central to my major. I did not completely understand the way that the course was designed; it seemed like a hodgepodge of material coming together to create this greater […]