academic icon bell hooks DEAD@ 69
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Rest in peace.
www.independent.co.uk
Celebrated author and feminist bell hooks dies, aged 69
The acclaimed cultural critic – real name Gloria Jean Watkins – published many books about race, gender and class
www.independent.co.uk
Rest in Power sista Gloria Jean Watkins your spirit will remain.... and "Yes" you are a woman!
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‘The world is a lesser place today without her.’
Acclaimed author bell hooks dies at 69.
BY LINDA BLACKFORD UPDATED DECEMBER 15, 2021 11:41 AM
Writer bell hooks. LIZA MATTHEWS BELL HOOKS INSTITUTE
bell hooks, a Hopkinsville native who went on to an international career as an author, critic, feminist and public intellectual, died on Dec. 15 at her home in Berea. She was 69.
She had been ill and was surrounded by friends and family when she passed, according to a press release from her niece, Ebony Motley.
Gloria Jean Watkins was born on Sept. 25, 1952 in Hopkinsville, Ky. to Veodis and Rosa Bell Watkins, the fourth of seven siblings. She attended segregated schools in Christian County, then went on to Stanford University in California, then earned a master’s in English at the University of Wisconsin and a doctorate in literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
She adopted her great-grandmother’s name as her pen name in lower case letters, she told interviewers, in order to emphasize the “substance of books, not who I am.”
She published her first book, “Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism” in 1981. Her literary career continued with more than 40 books of including essays, poetry and children’s books. Her topics include feminism, racism, culture, politics, gender roles, love, and spirituality.
In 2004, she returned to Kentucky to teach at Berea College. Another book, “Belonging: A Culture of Place,” discussed her move back. In 2010, the school opened the bell hooks Institute at Berea College. The institute houses her collection of contemporary African-American art, personal artifacts and copies of her books published in other languages. The center has attracted visitors such as Gloria Steinem, actress Emma Watson and Cornel West.
“Berea College is deeply saddened about the death of bell hooks, Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies, prodigious author, public intellectual and one of the country’s foremost feminist scholars,” the school said in a statement. hooks left her papers there as well.
In a 2018 interview with former columnist Tom Eblen when she was inducted into the Kentucky Writers’ Hall of Fame, hooks said that she wanted important people to come to the institute to speak with local people.
“Lots of people aren’t comfortable coming on college campuses for a talk. They feel like that’s not their place,” she said. The thing about the institute is that its goal is to be this sort of democratic location. No degrees required.” Feminist Gloria Steinem, left, appears with bell hooks at a program at Berea College on Nov. 16, 2015 BEREA COLLEGE
hooks hugely influenced numerous writers across numerous fields in academia and beyond.
“I want my work to be about healing,” she said. “I am a fortunate writer because every day of my life practically I get a letter, a phone call from someone who tells me how my work has transformed their life.”
She remained close with friends and family in Berea. “She was one of my dearest friends and the world is a lesser place today without her,” said one of her Berea friends, Linda Strong-Leek.
A celebration of life will be announced at a later time.
Read more at: https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article256616171.html#storylink=cpy
Acclaimed author bell hooks dies at 69.
BY LINDA BLACKFORD UPDATED DECEMBER 15, 2021 11:41 AM
Writer bell hooks. LIZA MATTHEWS BELL HOOKS INSTITUTE
bell hooks, a Hopkinsville native who went on to an international career as an author, critic, feminist and public intellectual, died on Dec. 15 at her home in Berea. She was 69.
She had been ill and was surrounded by friends and family when she passed, according to a press release from her niece, Ebony Motley.
Gloria Jean Watkins was born on Sept. 25, 1952 in Hopkinsville, Ky. to Veodis and Rosa Bell Watkins, the fourth of seven siblings. She attended segregated schools in Christian County, then went on to Stanford University in California, then earned a master’s in English at the University of Wisconsin and a doctorate in literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
She adopted her great-grandmother’s name as her pen name in lower case letters, she told interviewers, in order to emphasize the “substance of books, not who I am.”
She published her first book, “Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism” in 1981. Her literary career continued with more than 40 books of including essays, poetry and children’s books. Her topics include feminism, racism, culture, politics, gender roles, love, and spirituality.
In 2004, she returned to Kentucky to teach at Berea College. Another book, “Belonging: A Culture of Place,” discussed her move back. In 2010, the school opened the bell hooks Institute at Berea College. The institute houses her collection of contemporary African-American art, personal artifacts and copies of her books published in other languages. The center has attracted visitors such as Gloria Steinem, actress Emma Watson and Cornel West.
“Berea College is deeply saddened about the death of bell hooks, Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies, prodigious author, public intellectual and one of the country’s foremost feminist scholars,” the school said in a statement. hooks left her papers there as well.
In a 2018 interview with former columnist Tom Eblen when she was inducted into the Kentucky Writers’ Hall of Fame, hooks said that she wanted important people to come to the institute to speak with local people.
“Lots of people aren’t comfortable coming on college campuses for a talk. They feel like that’s not their place,” she said. The thing about the institute is that its goal is to be this sort of democratic location. No degrees required.” Feminist Gloria Steinem, left, appears with bell hooks at a program at Berea College on Nov. 16, 2015 BEREA COLLEGE
hooks hugely influenced numerous writers across numerous fields in academia and beyond.
“I want my work to be about healing,” she said. “I am a fortunate writer because every day of my life practically I get a letter, a phone call from someone who tells me how my work has transformed their life.”
She remained close with friends and family in Berea. “She was one of my dearest friends and the world is a lesser place today without her,” said one of her Berea friends, Linda Strong-Leek.
A celebration of life will be announced at a later time.
Read more at: https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article256616171.html#storylink=cpy
So she wasn't a mother?
She's dead...
Master teachings? She was one of the ideological architects of the modern Black feminist intellectual narrative that blames Black men for everything!
I'm not going to disrespect the dead but....Y'all celebrating this bitch. Word? BGOL is a strange place.
69 is too young. 
RIP sister.
RIP sister.
There are no words to describe this loss.
Read her words to understand her impact.
Read her words to understand her impact.
Rest In Peace
Rest in Peace.
I could give two shits.
Bell Hooks along with Michele Wallace, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Audrey Lorde, Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, and later Terry Macmillan, were the backbone of postmodern (1970s, 80s, and 90s) black feminist writers who literally wrote the template of the black feminist anti-black male thought and talking points, that have wrecked the traditional family in our community, through warping the minds of today's black woman.
You can tell which MFs on here actually read, who the closet male feminists are, and which ones look at social media posts and regurgitate condolences they see on other MFs pages.
That bitch was the enemy.
Bell Hooks along with Michele Wallace, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Audrey Lorde, Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, and later Terry Macmillan, were the backbone of postmodern (1970s, 80s, and 90s) black feminist writers who literally wrote the template of the black feminist anti-black male thought and talking points, that have wrecked the traditional family in our community, through warping the minds of today's black woman.
You can tell which MFs on here actually read, who the closet male feminists are, and which ones look at social media posts and regurgitate condolences they see on other MFs pages.
That bitch was the enemy.
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If you don't give two shits then why are you posting in this thread? Keep it movin' then.....go to the next thread!
It's really that simple..............
Just speaking on who she's survived by, noticed they called her an Aunt but not a mother
Nah, she didn't have kids, that's all I know.
I wasn't gonna say anything but.....
There are 3 kinds of feminists in my book, the ones who hate men, the ones that wanna be free to hoe and the ones who promote actually being feminine.
I have serious doubts Bell Hooks was in the third camp.
But respectfully, r.i.p.
When bell hooks wrote about her personal life, she always described a heterosexual relationship with a black males...
Bro listen.
There were a lot of unapologetic writers from that era. They told their experiences, there are just as many Black male writers who were equally as unapologetic that didn’t uphold any false sanctity of women but told it like it was and gave no passes. They shared theirs we shared ours. Everyone during that era was subverting every power structure of race, gender, culture etc Several different movements sprung out. When you understand the time these authors came about you’ll understand where their writing was coming from.
Nah.
Buckle TF up for this one:
This is that 'understand the times they were living in' hussle that I sometimes hear white-supremacists make, tryna justify George Washington owning slaves.
I'll give you an example of why this does not work for these writers:
When Michele Wallace wrote her anti-black male, feminist book 'Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman', her own mother, pro-woman advocate, and famous artist, Faith Ringgold, wrote a criticism called 'Letter to My Daughter' and went on a tour criticizing the book for its negative depiction of black men, claiming that it was an unnecessarily unrealistic, bitter portrayal of black men.
These postmodern black feminist writers sought to create symmetry between the struggles of black women and white women. As white women fought a white male patriarchy, those writers *created* the fiction of a black male patriarchy, of which they indoctrinated our women to believe needed to overthrown. Problem was that there was no black male patriarchy, so it just descended into black male bashing, which continues to this day..
Women like Bell Hooks weren't championing the experiences of women, as you suggest, they were *creating a mythology* painting black men as evil oppressors (just go watch The color Purple, or For Colored Girls, you will see it), in order to portray us as mentaly unstable products of male rule, unfit to lead. Don't believe me? here is a quote of her saying so herself:
“The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.” -Bell Hooks
As an aside, and to your point about the era of 'unapologetic writers', I understand this era well. It was the height of the postmodernism. Postmoderns focus on individual truth, and think objective truth is an absurdity. In fact 'Womanism' is a post-modern movement and birthed intersectional feminism which fragmented feminism along the lines of personal experience. Feminism of the individual. Back in college, I took classes on philosophical ideologies behind movements. Funny thing is that the unapologetic writers you cite like Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Elaine Brown, and Sonia Sanchez were direct critics of this group of radical feminist writers, not because they were more radical; but because they were liars creating fictions.
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The majority of nBGOL is pro-white which makes them pro-feminism by default.
Yeah I can't rock with Bell Hooks, all this stuff we go through she's a big part of that.
All this socialization with no benefits attached and deep studies on the "causes and sources" without putting a dime in our pocket.
No offense to anyone but Bell isn't my cup of tea IMO...
None of this garbage is pushed to hispanics and they be doing mad dirt on the regular.
Man, you truly know what the fuck you're talking about, especially on an academic level. I'm sure you're familiar with Tommy Curry's criticisms of this tradition.
When They See Us: Feminism Role in the Central Park 5 Case
June 15, 2019 BWNC Blog
By now if you haven’t seen Ava Duvernay’s Netflix film “When They See Us” your timeline has probably been inundated with commentary surrounding the film. Most of the response has been visceral, largely because as much as Hollywood has covered on Black life the trauma projected on screen never becomes easy to bear. Most of us either watched it and set ourselves up to only be pissed off about the stuff we are already pissed off about, while others are hesitant to even watch the docufilm because this story, although unique in its own right, has an all too familiar ending; Black men are falsely accused and unjustly incarcerated…..again. Although the online reaction has been homogenous for the most part, most of us have not considered a glaring but ugly truth in the case of the Central Park Five, and that’s the role feminism played in the incarceration of each of these young men.
The biggest rift that many Black feminists have with White feminists is their inability to see the intersection of race and gender that works in concert to oppress and discriminate against Black women. At the height of this case, the surrounding discourse was whether or not the public should consider the idea of if race played a role in how this case was handled.
Since White feminists typically don’t have to consider the idea of race and gender working in concert, statements such as this are inevitable:
Then there were feminist voices that dismissed the role race played not in terms of its interplay with the court case, but, under the premise that race played no role in the attackers choice of victim. This is to imply that the group of men (all of them of African descent) had a proclivity to rape women regardless of race, but Black men overwhelmingly internalized that proclivity more than any other racial demographic.
Popular feminist scholar and author Joan Morgan, author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost said, being African-American would have not spared her from the attack. Morgan rightfully deals with the trauma inflicted on the women of the case but in her seminal work she’s silent on the glaring loopholes in this case that were brought out during the trial and there was no advocacy for the release of the Central Park Five.
Popular feminist scholar Bell Hooks writes in her book Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics:
This dangerous trope is pretty much par for the course when it comes to Hooks’ feelings toward Black men-we are hyper-sexual deviants. Hooks has republished the book twice since the five men have been exonerated and in neither edition does she revise or retract her thoughts.
There were dissenting voices within feminist circles such as Kimberle’ Crenshaw who felt that the either/or divide of race and gender only exacerbated the case. Crenshaw would state that she both empathized with the victim but saw herself in the eyes of the accused mother’s who had to watch their sons go through a racially charged case.
The sentiments held by White feminists and even some Black feminists surrounding this case isn’t without historical precedence. Black men and young Black boys have lived under the specter of criminality since Reconstruction. In fact, after slavery it was White women who promulgated the idea of the Black male rapist to justify Black imprisonment, Black Codes and even the lynching of Black men. It is the protection of White women that many scholars believe precipitated the era during Reconstruction where Black men were lynched at a high rate.
Tommy Curry, author of The Man-Not chronicles how the women rights movement of the late 19th and early 20th century germinates from the creation of Jim Crow and works appositionally with White Patriarchy not opposed to it. In much of the feminist thought mention above, White and Black feminists often miss how gender plays a role in the racial domination of Black men. For many people, race is the only thing Black men have to worry about, but the history of Black male trauma shows that a Black man’s maleness can also be weaponized against him. From the Scottsboro 9 case, to Emmitt Till and to the Central Park Five case the Black male rapist is just as harmful a trope as any Black stereotype and has caused lives to be lost by incarceration or by lynching when Black men are falsely accused. When They See Us reveals how Black men are not architects of patriarchy but its victims.
blackwithnochaser.com
June 15, 2019 BWNC Blog
By now if you haven’t seen Ava Duvernay’s Netflix film “When They See Us” your timeline has probably been inundated with commentary surrounding the film. Most of the response has been visceral, largely because as much as Hollywood has covered on Black life the trauma projected on screen never becomes easy to bear. Most of us either watched it and set ourselves up to only be pissed off about the stuff we are already pissed off about, while others are hesitant to even watch the docufilm because this story, although unique in its own right, has an all too familiar ending; Black men are falsely accused and unjustly incarcerated…..again. Although the online reaction has been homogenous for the most part, most of us have not considered a glaring but ugly truth in the case of the Central Park Five, and that’s the role feminism played in the incarceration of each of these young men.
The biggest rift that many Black feminists have with White feminists is their inability to see the intersection of race and gender that works in concert to oppress and discriminate against Black women. At the height of this case, the surrounding discourse was whether or not the public should consider the idea of if race played a role in how this case was handled.
Since White feminists typically don’t have to consider the idea of race and gender working in concert, statements such as this are inevitable:
If you believe that this was just the background noise of the day and didn’t play a role in the unjust incarceration of each of these men, don’t miss the fact that public sentiment (especially expressed by feminist) was just as strong as online public sentiment is today that can influence the way we think about things and the outcome of events.
Then there were feminist voices that dismissed the role race played not in terms of its interplay with the court case, but, under the premise that race played no role in the attackers choice of victim. This is to imply that the group of men (all of them of African descent) had a proclivity to rape women regardless of race, but Black men overwhelmingly internalized that proclivity more than any other racial demographic.
Popular feminist scholar and author Joan Morgan, author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost said, being African-American would have not spared her from the attack. Morgan rightfully deals with the trauma inflicted on the women of the case but in her seminal work she’s silent on the glaring loopholes in this case that were brought out during the trial and there was no advocacy for the release of the Central Park Five.
Popular feminist scholar Bell Hooks writes in her book Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics:
This dangerous trope is pretty much par for the course when it comes to Hooks’ feelings toward Black men-we are hyper-sexual deviants. Hooks has republished the book twice since the five men have been exonerated and in neither edition does she revise or retract her thoughts.
There were dissenting voices within feminist circles such as Kimberle’ Crenshaw who felt that the either/or divide of race and gender only exacerbated the case. Crenshaw would state that she both empathized with the victim but saw herself in the eyes of the accused mother’s who had to watch their sons go through a racially charged case.
The sentiments held by White feminists and even some Black feminists surrounding this case isn’t without historical precedence. Black men and young Black boys have lived under the specter of criminality since Reconstruction. In fact, after slavery it was White women who promulgated the idea of the Black male rapist to justify Black imprisonment, Black Codes and even the lynching of Black men. It is the protection of White women that many scholars believe precipitated the era during Reconstruction where Black men were lynched at a high rate.
Tommy Curry, author of The Man-Not chronicles how the women rights movement of the late 19th and early 20th century germinates from the creation of Jim Crow and works appositionally with White Patriarchy not opposed to it. In much of the feminist thought mention above, White and Black feminists often miss how gender plays a role in the racial domination of Black men. For many people, race is the only thing Black men have to worry about, but the history of Black male trauma shows that a Black man’s maleness can also be weaponized against him. From the Scottsboro 9 case, to Emmitt Till and to the Central Park Five case the Black male rapist is just as harmful a trope as any Black stereotype and has caused lives to be lost by incarceration or by lynching when Black men are falsely accused. When They See Us reveals how Black men are not architects of patriarchy but its victims.
When They See Us: Feminism[s] Role in the Central Park 5 Case -
By now if you haven’t seen Ava Duvernay’s Netflix film “When They See Us” your timeline has probably been inundated with commentary surrounding the film. Most of the response has been visceral, largely because as much as Hollywood has covered on Black life the trauma projected on screen never...
blackwithnochaser.com
When They See Us: Feminism Role in the Central Park 5 Case
June 15, 2019 BWNC Blog
By now if you haven’t seen Ava Duvernay’s Netflix film “When They See Us” your timeline has probably been inundated with commentary surrounding the film. Most of the response has been visceral, largely because as much as Hollywood has covered on Black life the trauma projected on screen never becomes easy to bear. Most of us either watched it and set ourselves up to only be pissed off about the stuff we are already pissed off about, while others are hesitant to even watch the docufilm because this story, although unique in its own right, has an all too familiar ending; Black men are falsely accused and unjustly incarcerated…..again. Although the online reaction has been homogenous for the most part, most of us have not considered a glaring but ugly truth in the case of the Central Park Five, and that’s the role feminism played in the incarceration of each of these young men.
The biggest rift that many Black feminists have with White feminists is their inability to see the intersection of race and gender that works in concert to oppress and discriminate against Black women. At the height of this case, the surrounding discourse was whether or not the public should consider the idea of if race played a role in how this case was handled.
Since White feminists typically don’t have to consider the idea of race and gender working in concert, statements such as this are inevitable:
If you believe that this was just the background noise of the day and didn’t play a role in the unjust incarceration of each of these men, don’t miss the fact that public sentiment (especially expressed by feminist) was just as strong as online public sentiment is today that can influence the way we think about things and the outcome of events.
Then there were feminist voices that dismissed the role race played not in terms of its interplay with the court case, but, under the premise that race played no role in the attackers choice of victim. This is to imply that the group of men (all of them of African descent) had a proclivity to rape women regardless of race, but Black men overwhelmingly internalized that proclivity more than any other racial demographic.
Popular feminist scholar and author Joan Morgan, author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost said, being African-American would have not spared her from the attack. Morgan rightfully deals with the trauma inflicted on the women of the case but in her seminal work she’s silent on the glaring loopholes in this case that were brought out during the trial and there was no advocacy for the release of the Central Park Five.
Popular feminist scholar Bell Hooks writes in her book Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics:
This dangerous trope is pretty much par for the course when it comes to Hooks’ feelings toward Black men-we are hyper-sexual deviants. Hooks has republished the book twice since the five men have been exonerated and in neither edition does she revise or retract her thoughts.
There were dissenting voices within feminist circles such as Kimberle’ Crenshaw who felt that the either/or divide of race and gender only exacerbated the case. Crenshaw would state that she both empathized with the victim but saw herself in the eyes of the accused mother’s who had to watch their sons go through a racially charged case.
The sentiments held by White feminists and even some Black feminists surrounding this case isn’t without historical precedence. Black men and young Black boys have lived under the specter of criminality since Reconstruction. In fact, after slavery it was White women who promulgated the idea of the Black male rapist to justify Black imprisonment, Black Codes and even the lynching of Black men. It is the protection of White women that many scholars believe precipitated the era during Reconstruction where Black men were lynched at a high rate.
Tommy Curry, author of The Man-Not chronicles how the women rights movement of the late 19th and early 20th century germinates from the creation of Jim Crow and works appositionally with White Patriarchy not opposed to it. In much of the feminist thought mention above, White and Black feminists often miss how gender plays a role in the racial domination of Black men. For many people, race is the only thing Black men have to worry about, but the history of Black male trauma shows that a Black man’s maleness can also be weaponized against him. From the Scottsboro 9 case, to Emmitt Till and to the Central Park Five case the Black male rapist is just as harmful a trope as any Black stereotype and has caused lives to be lost by incarceration or by lynching when Black men are falsely accused. When They See Us reveals how Black men are not architects of patriarchy but its victims.
When They See Us: Feminism[s] Role in the Central Park 5 Case -
By now if you haven’t seen Ava Duvernay’s Netflix film “When They See Us” your timeline has probably been inundated with commentary surrounding the film. Most of the response has been visceral, largely because as much as Hollywood has covered on Black life the trauma projected on screen never...