academic icon bell hooks DEAD@ 69

Mello Mello

Ballz of Adamantium
BGOL Investor
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.

Yeah I took a similar class too dealing with feminist theory, ethics and philosophy and it’s relation to Karl Marx among other theories. I’m not saying Bell Hooks is not deserving of any criticism because it’s certainly warranted especially for the statements you mentioned above. In my own critique from that class I’ve said the very same thing, feminism is more of a popularity contest than movement for equality and liberation and it contradicts itself several times.

However, I can’t lay all the blame for this at bell hooks feet. I don’t think thats fair at all but I can see how from her own writing one might say that especially being men and seeing all that we face as black men.

She wrote her piece on how intersecting identities influence oppression and spoke radically (like many others did during this time) those remarks were a part of that. Yet she’s also wrote about the need for feminism to make room form men and actually wanted to hear black mens voices as well.

Maybe I look at her work differently, I don’t believe she hated black men, I see her feminist politics separately from the feminist activism. The politics are pedagogical because the language usage is practically hate speech (radical for that time). But the activism is more about teaching and making aware of the boundaries and respect women were seeking.
 

snark9

Cantankerous Bastid
BGOL Investor
Yeah I took a similar class too dealing with feminist theory, ethics and philosophy and it’s relation to Karl Marx among other theories. I’m not saying Bell Hooks is not deserving of any criticism because it’s certainly warranted especially for the statements you mentioned above. In my own critique from that class I’ve said the very same thing, feminism is more of a popularity contest than movement for equality and liberation and it contradicts itself several times.

However, I can’t lay all the blame for this at bell hooks feet. I don’t think thats fair at all but I can see how from her own writing one might say that especially being men and seeing all that we face as black men.

She wrote her piece on how intersecting identities influence oppression and spoke radically (like many others did during this time) those remarks were a part of that. Yet she’s also wrote about the need for feminism to make room form men and actually wanted to hear black mens voices as well.

Maybe I look at her work differently, I don’t believe she hated black men, I see her feminist politics separately from the feminist activism. The politics are pedagogical because the language usage is practically hate speech (radical for that time). But the activism is more about teaching and making aware of the boundaries and respect women were seeking.


I see what you are saying. The only issue that I have with it is that I am not laying all of the blame at bell hooks. Rather, I am stating the fact that she was a part of a generation of postmodern radical feminist writers who, deviated from black gender solidarity movements such as the panthers etc, and created the fiction of a black male patriarchy, to be in ideological symmetry with white feminism.

She helped create the notion that men are inherently mentally unstable, abusive, and unfit for familial or social leadership.

Her writing helped lay the groundwork for the warped view of black masculinity and made common the sensibility that produces a vote of no confidence on black male leadership.

This perspective is now heavily influential and common in the contemporary anti-traditionalist thought and mainstream of black female culture, to disastrous effects for the traditional black family.

Furthermore, when one views the criminality of the children single mothers produce, it is hard not to see correlation between the resulting feminist experiment in restructuring the black family, as a failed enterprise.
 
Last edited:

snark9

Cantankerous Bastid
BGOL Investor
which book support what your saying saying

Have you read "Ain't I a Woman?"

Among other things covered in the book, she openly attacks Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka and other black male leaders, and characterizes them as sexists and chauvinists who supported the so-called 'patriarchy'.

She suggests that the were sexist due to the fact that they made themselves the face of the movement organizations, while women were 'relegated' to organizational capacities. But if you read the diaries of Martin, Julian Bond, and Malcolm as well as Andrew Young, These men put themselves at the forefront b/c they wanted to protect black women from being targets of assassination. And if you think about what happened; it worked.

This is just one example of things she asserts. There are many others...
 
Last edited:

Duece

Get your shit together
BGOL Investor
unpin this thread

FGvIlVlVUAMBpJP
 

jackson35

Rising Star
Registered
Have you read "Ain't I a Woman?"

Among other things covered in the book, she openly attacks Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka and other black male leaders, and characterizes them as sexists and chauvinists who supported the so-called 'patriarchy'.

She suggests that the were sexist due to the fact that they made themselves the face of the movement organizations, while women were 'relegated' to organizational capacities. But if you read the diaries of Martin, Julian Bond, and Malcolm as well as Andrew Young, These men put themselves at the forefront b/c they wanted to protect black women from being targets of assassination. And if you think about what happened; it worked.

This is just one example of things she asserts. There are many others...
the men are the one that need protecting
 

jackson35

Rising Star
Registered
Have you read "Ain't I a Woman?"

Among other things covered in the book, she openly attacks Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka and other black male leaders, and characterizes them as sexists and chauvinists who supported the so-called 'patriarchy'.

She suggests that the were sexist due to the fact that they made themselves the face of the movement organizations, while women were 'relegated' to organizational capacities. But if you read the diaries of Martin, Julian Bond, and Malcolm as well as Andrew Young, These men put themselves at the forefront b/c they wanted to protect black women from being targets of assassination. And if you think about what happened; it worked.

This is just one example of things she asserts. There are many others...
these brothers told u there sexist out of their own mouths
 

blackpepper

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Perhaps it's just me but, this statement is such a convoluted, oratorical, jumble of rhetoric that I honestly don't really know what the message is. That could be why I've never read any of her stuff. I don't care for authors like that because there is too much ambiguity.
 

VAiz4hustlaz

Proud ADOS and not afraid to step to da mic!
BGOL Investor
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.

I need to read her mother's book. I was unfamiliar with it. But check it. I looked it up on Amazon and Michele herself wrote this in her review:

"I have lived with the text of this book, written by my mother, Faith Ringgold, about my first book Black Macho and the Myth of The Superwoman for 35 years. It is a pleasure to see it, finally, in this published form. Not only are the many beautiful reproductions of her art from the 1960s and the family photographs a delight for me to review once again, I am also pleased that I can finally read what she has to say with a fairly cool and appraising eye, able to take in the many merits and insights of the text. What surprises me about it the most is that my mother could have written this 35 years ago, at the age of 51, and still have the same opinions all these years later. Whereas, almost nothing I wrote in Black Macho would I repeat or continue to agree with now. I feel like I have changed in every way possible and that I am always changing, my opinions about such matters in particular. My mother's firmness and certainty continues to fascinate me."
 

blackpepper

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
I need to read her mother's book. I was unfamiliar with it. But check it. I looked it up on Amazon and Michele herself wrote this in her review:

"I have lived with the text of this book, written by my mother, Faith Ringgold, about my first book Black Macho and the Myth of The Superwoman for 35 years. It is a pleasure to see it, finally, in this published form. Not only are the many beautiful reproductions of her art from the 1960s and the family photographs a delight for me to review once again, I am also pleased that I can finally read what she has to say with a fairly cool and appraising eye, able to take in the many merits and insights of the text. What surprises me about it the most is that my mother could have written this 35 years ago, at the age of 51, and still have the same opinions all these years later. Whereas, almost nothing I wrote in Black Macho would I repeat or continue to agree with now. I feel like I have changed in every way possible and that I am always changing, my opinions about such matters in particular. My mother's firmness and certainty continues to fascinate me."
If I understand her correctly, she basically said her mom was right and she has changed her opinions on most of what she wrote in Black Macho. Such a flip flop on these subjects calls into question her motivations. Could it be she wrote it back then because it was decisive, controversial and would sell. Later on, in the moment she wrote the review of her mom's book she was trying to hype her mom's work for better sales. Man, bitches aint shit. JK. :D
 
Last edited:

snark9

Cantankerous Bastid
BGOL Investor
I need to read her mother's book. I was unfamiliar with it. But check it. I looked it up on Amazon and Michele herself wrote this in her review:

"I have lived with the text of this book, written by my mother, Faith Ringgold, about my first book Black Macho and the Myth of The Superwoman for 35 years. It is a pleasure to see it, finally, in this published form. Not only are the many beautiful reproductions of her art from the 1960s and the family photographs a delight for me to review once again, I am also pleased that I can finally read what she has to say with a fairly cool and appraising eye, able to take in the many merits and insights of the text. What surprises me about it the most is that my mother could have written this 35 years ago, at the age of 51, and still have the same opinions all these years later. Whereas, almost nothing I wrote in Black Macho would I repeat or continue to agree with now. I feel like I have changed in every way possible and that I am always changing, my opinions about such matters in particular. My mother's firmness and certainty continues to fascinate me."


Yeah brother, It is worth a read.

Concerning her statements, who cares about what she would do now. The damage has been done, and she did it when it counted.
There is a reason her mother could hold the same opinions now as she did then about her daughter's insanity: Her moms was right.
 

Mello Mello

Ballz of Adamantium
BGOL Investor
I see what you are saying. The only issue that I have with it is that I am not laying all of the blame at bell hooks. Rather, I am stating the fact that she was a part of a generation of postmodern radical feminist writers who, deviated from black gender solidarity movements such as the panthers etc, and created the fiction of a black male patriarchy, to be in ideological symmetry with white feminism.

She helped create the notion that men are inherently mentally unstable, abusive, and unfit for familial or social leadership.

Her writing helped lay the groundwork for the warped view of black masculinity and made common the sensibility that produces a vote of no confidence on black male leadership.

This perspective is now heavily influential and common in the contemporary anti-traditionalist thought and mainstream of black female culture, to disastrous effects for the traditional black family.

Furthermore, when one views the criminality of the children single mothers produce, it is hard not to see correlation between the resulting feminist experiment in restructuring the black family, as a failed enterprise.

I hear you because I’ve made similar sentiment. Black men in this country have held no patriarchal structure in America over Black women we are unique in that way. While I see no reason to deny any benefit of being a man in this country that’s usually where the benefit ends for us. Anyone trying to place Black men in the same level of patriarchal structure as white men are pretending to suit their own narrative and failing to properly examine the Black condition in this country. We’ve seen a lot of pretending for years because it was easy to explain away but far from accurate.
 

dHustla

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
In fact 'Womanism' is a post-modern movement and birthed intersectional feminism which fragmented feminism along the lines of personal experience.
It was my understanding that womanism is more celebrating womanhood as opposed to pushing the feminist agenda against men.

While I've heard of intersectional feminism before, I didn't quite understand it and how it differed from regular feminism
 

dHustla

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
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.
I didn't know any of this about Bell Hooks.
My introduction to Bell Hooks was her book "Salvation; Black people and love" in which I didn't notice any feminist undertones.

While I do understand your position, as well as why (and agree about being the enemy or a pawn of) ... let's not malign the dead. Instead let's push the needle forward in the right direction.
 

snark9

Cantankerous Bastid
BGOL Investor
I didn't know any of this about Bell Hooks.
My introduction to Bell Hooks was her book "Salvation; Black people and love" in which I didn't notice any feminist undertones.

While I do understand your position, as well as why (and agree about being the enemy or a pawn of) ... let's not malign the dead. Instead let's push the needle forward in the right direction.

It was my understanding that womanism is more celebrating womanhood as opposed to pushing the feminist agenda against men.

While I've heard of intersectional feminism before, I didn't quite understand it and how it differed from regular feminism


I didn't characterize womanism within the statement you referenced beyond identifying it as a postmodern movement.

Some people may think 'pushing the needle forward in the right direction', means identifying people who have been the enemy of progress for our people; and that those people don't deserve reverence.

I'm glad that you can Identify a substantially positive reading of one of her works. But unfortunately it demonstrates the good that she could have done without helping create black men as a fictional antagonist to the community.
 
Last edited:

Wobble Wobble

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
I was just listening to a BGS stream. I think the consensus was yeah she was a feminist but she got it in :blush:
I got to hear her in person about 25 years ago, and while there was a strident "feminism" in the room, I got the impression that she was down and showed special interest in the fact I was with an older woman.

But I don't know - I never been in the bedroom with her.
 
Top