April 29, 2025 • 37 mins
bell hooks: Challenging Society
In this episode, the hosts discuss the life and impact of Gloria Jean Watkins, famously known as Bell Hooks. They explore where is bell hooks from, who bell hooks is, her early life in segregated Kentucky, her academic journey, and her groundbreaking work on intersectionality, feminism, and social critique. Hooks’ prolific writing and influential theories, especially on feminism and the complexities of identity, are highlighted along with her ability to make complex ideas accessible. The episode also touches on her critiques, her influence on modern feminism, and her continuing relevance in today's socio-political landscape.
Sources
https://www.womenshistory.org/exhibits/feminism-second-wave
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-revolutionary-writing-of-bell-hooks
https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/revolutionary-practice-black-feminisms
https://www.berea.edu/centers/the-bell-hooks-center/about-bell
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/12/15/where-start-bell-hooks
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/01/18/bell-hooks-revolutionary-who-led-with-love
https://www.bookey.app/quote-book/ain%27t-i-a-woman
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/bell-hooks-obituary
https://www.sepad.org.uk/announcement/social-theory-bell-hooks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_hooks
00:00 Introduction
00:21 Dinner Plans and Weekend Activities
01:23 A Story of Inclusivity: Bell Hooks
02:13 Early Life and Education of Bell Hooks
05:11 Bell Hooks' Landmark Work: Ain't I A Woman
11:21 Exploring Intersectionality and Feminism
26:49 Critiques and Contributions of Bell Hooks
33:57 Legacy and Impact of Bell Hooks
37:07 Conclusion and Call to Action
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
audio1335188856 (00:08):
Shall we begin?
Yeah, let's do it.
Thank you.
Hi.
Hi Vicky.
Hello, how are you?
Yeah, I'm good.
Thank you.
You look fabulous today.
Well, thank you.
We're going out to dinnertonight, so Chris White shirt,
little extra.
Oh, we're going to the Smokery,so I'm very excited.
(00:28):
Oh, hello?
Is that the N?
Yeah.
Under the nut or something?
Is that one?
No, this one is the Y ValleyFish Smokery, and it's like.
Posh seafood, and it is a doover dinner for Charlie's
birthday, which was earlier inthe month, and we had to cancel,
and I'm gonna say we had tocancel.
Did he?
(00:49):
Oh, he was heavily hungover.
Charlie boy, he wascatastrophically hungover, so
well, he was 21 really leaninginto the 21st birthday vibes.
Yeah.
Have you got any plans thisweekend?
Oh yeah.
We're going to the historyfestival, aren't we?
On Sunday?
Yeah.
That'll be amazing.
I'm really looking forward tothat.
and we have some fancy t-shirts.
Fingers crossed they'll arrive.
They've got one more posthopefully tomorrow.
(01:09):
Oh my.
Okay.
I know.
Come on.
T-shirts crossed.
I know I'm praying to this.
If not, we're just gonna have toput like.
Post-it notes on enormoust-shirt.
But in between time I've got astory for you.
Would you like to know?
Yes, please.
Brilliant.
I've got a little introductionfor you.
today we are going to talk abouta little girl who held up a
mirror to the world, who got theworld to think, consider and
(01:32):
challenge what they were doing.
It wasn't easy, but this littlegirl lit up ideas in millions of
people by doing one simplething, including them.
This is a story of inclusivityat its finest, and how igniting
critical thinking has the powerto move the world on one tiny
step at a time.
This is the story of Gloria JeanWatkins, otherwise known as Bell
(01:56):
Hooks.
Oh, how exciting.
Have you heard about Belle?
Heard the name.
It's a name I know.
Mm-hmm.
And I have almost nothing elsein my mind about her, so I am so
excited to.
To hear more.
It's super fresh.
That's exciting.
So we are going to the 1950s.
we're going to a small towncalled Hopkinsville, which is in
(02:19):
Kentucky.
USA.
So we are thinking full circledresses.
We're thinking bluegrass music.
We're thinking bourbon, doublebreasted suits, and Chevrolets
the color of candy.
But it's also important to notethat at this time, segregation
is there and it's completelyvicious throughout the south.
(02:39):
This is where Gloria JeanWatkins was born.
Her grandmother nicknamed HerGlory.
How adorable is that?
Oh, she grew up where her fatherwas a janitor and her mother was
a maid for white families.
She was born in 1952 and, hereducation was mainly segregated.
but that didn't stop herAbsolutely loving the classroom.
(03:03):
She was a little sponge of allthings knowledge.
She talks about her childhoodquite a bit in certain memoirs.
she later described herchildhood that she actually
struggled to create self andidentity whilst growing up and.
She grew up with a rich, magicalworld of southern black culture
(03:23):
that was sometimes paradisicaland other times terrifying.
So that kind of shows us thatreal kind of juxtaposition
That's it.
I guess your.
Always in a family you're in amicrocosm and in a culture,
you're in a microcosm.
Mm-hmm.
And then you have the largersociety that you live in.
(03:45):
Yeah.
And those two things can bevery, very different.
One can almost be a retreat fromthe other.
So I think so it sounds like herfamily was strong and loving,
but the circumstances that theylived in because of the time and
her place that they lived inwere extremely difficult.
You're right.
And that support was very muchthere.
(04:06):
Like she had a lot of supportgrowing up in her community, she
loved books and writing and shepracticed a lot her mom would
tell her off for reading late atnight with her little torch on.
She actually got some of herearly writings published in the
Sunday School magazine, whichwas really sweet, cute, and but
she was told off quite heavilyas a child for talking back,
(04:29):
which is a theme you'll noticethat continues throughout her
life, this idea of challengingand, defiance.
Integration in schools came inthe late 1960s while she was
still at school, and that was areally big experience for her.
As you can imagine, it very muchinspired again her later life
(04:49):
when she actually became ateacher.
Gloria graduated fromHopkinsville High School and
then she went on to not justanywhere Stanford, and she went
Wow.
On with a scholarship.
Oh, so she was a clever, aclever student, yeah.
All that reading and all thatsupport and all that is paying
off.
She's still really young at thispoint.
at.
(05:09):
Age, just 19.
She wrote her first and arguablyher most well-known work, which
was a book called Ain't i AWoman, black Women and Feminism,
which is a title that was alsoan ode.
so Joer Truth, um, who we shoulddefinitely do an episode on.
so Bell writes this book and itisn't publisher another 10
(05:31):
years, but it is seen as acomplete landmark book, of.
Slavery's legacy and blackculture today, and it gets
picked up, the success of thisbook can't be undermined.
in the book, bell argued aboutactual true liberation.
just to explore the book in alittle bit more detail, I've
(05:53):
picked out five quotes I'll justhoping that you could read them
all out and then we'll digestthem, so quote.
The history of black women isthe history of a resilience that
defies all odds.
My beauty is not confined tosocietal standards.
It is rooted in my strength andhistory.
(06:13):
The power of a black woman lieswithin her ability to embrace
her authentic self.
Our bodies are temples, notobjects of ownership or
ridicule.
I am not defined by my past.
I'm defined by the endlesspossibilities of my future.
I mean, yeah, they're prettystrong.
(06:33):
I'm not gonna lie.
The reason I picked out thosespecific codes is for a few
different reasons.
One, it just shows, oh, mate,how recent segregation is,
right?
This book is published in 1981,right?
And in there she talks about ourbodies are temples, not objects
of, ownership.
Um, it is rooted in my history.
I am not defined by my past.
(06:54):
These are all things that.
You know, she's a young woman atthis point and she's feeling the
effects of her eldergenerations, and it just talks
about, to me anyway, it wastalking about how enslavement
actually comes into modernsociety.
So when you hear about slavery,and this is something the media
(07:15):
does quite heavily, I think, isthey always use black and white
imagery.
And they always use, the wordancestor, which makes you feel
like it's hundreds of years agoand actually we're talking one
generation back.
Really?
That's where segregation.
Right.
we are not talking, Ancienthistory, you know, so for
(07:36):
example, the last Jim Crow lawwas overturned in 1965.
And just because a law isoverturned doesn't mean that
everything changes overnight.
Right?
I'm gonna really try very hardnot to rant.
Um, please do.
I love a car rent.
They make me so happy at a timewhen there.
(07:57):
Factions in America activelylobbying to teach, and I'm gonna
use scare quotes on the wordhistory as this kind of positive
spin machine about how gloriousour nation is without
acknowledging any of the truthsthat.
(08:19):
Went on in living memory.
These are not things, uh, wedon't, even if they happened,
you know, hundreds of years ago,it is still informative and
important to acknowledge them,but they happened in living
memory.
Mm-hmm.
Our parents, our grandparents,in some cases ourselves, were
(08:40):
alive when people wereexperiencing this.
And we have the sheer arroganceto suggest it shouldn't be
taught.
But you, you're, you've madesuch an interesting point there
about the black and whitephotography when they're talking
about enslavement and racism.
I, Bethany there was color.
Yeah.
You know, it wasn't that longago.
Mm-hmm.
(09:01):
The other reason I picked outthose quotes, because they focus
particularly on black women andwhat being a black.
Woman actually means thatthey're kind of different layers
of, Exclusion if you like, letalone if you add queer into that
mix as well.
Society often imposesstereotypes on black women
(09:22):
forcing them to conform to theselike limited standards.
Like you are either in that boxor you're in that box, however,
the quotes that you just readout.
reminders that a black woman'strue power lies in the idea of
rejecting these limitations.
Bell was very much focused on,embracing her genuine self.
(09:42):
You can see here I'm defined bythe endless possibilities.
So just this absolute passionand drive for the next, just
wanting more.
And it is totally okay to wantmore, and I just love that about
her.
She's very unapologetic, in thatsense, We are like during the
seventies now, bell pursuesgraduate work in So many places
(10:03):
she becomes really adept at likethe scholar world.
So she works for the Universityof Wisconsin Madison.
She works for the University ofCalifornia Santa Cruz.
she begins also publishingpoetry as well.
So she, after the success ofthis book, and it's around this
time, she start using her penname, which is Bell Hooks.
She decided to take the nameBell Hooks after her
(10:25):
grandmother.
who was named to have sharpopinions apparently, which I
really enjoyed that phrase.
I kept it in.
And she chose to, every time yousee bell hooks, you'll see it's
with a lowercase B and alowercase h.
And that's because she wanted toshift the attention towards the
ideas rather than her identity.
(10:45):
Okay.
Um, so you'll see wherever BellHooks is written, and it's
always in lowercase.
basically she's a marketeerdream.
Like Bell knew exactly what shewanted.
She knew, her message, she knewher brand, she knew her purpose.
She had it absolute nailed.
And it's shown, oh my God, inall her writing.
She's a prolific writer and hermessage is consistent
(11:08):
throughout, which is something Ireally do admire.
But there's nothing wrong withpivoting, but having that
compass and that steely, idealsand keeping to them I think is
really, to me, I find that very,very inspiring.
Belle was all about, equalityand she knew that feminism in
particular didn't hinge on justone thing.
(11:30):
It brought in loads of differentthings.
So I'm gonna give you a verysmall history of feminism in the
seventies.
Is that bring it, you'd like toknow about It certainly is.
Bring the first wave.
Let's be having it.
So first wave, you're absolutelyright, was 1920s.
(11:52):
And that was when women got thevote basically.
And do you know why they'recalled waves?
I do not.
Um, it's because they basicallypeak and trough.
So 1920s came, wow.
We had this really big, upswingof, equality and something as
cements in that wave.
So in the 1920s it was very muchbacking the vote.
(12:15):
Then you'll notice that at theend of the wave it kind of CDO
down and um, the fight tends toslow.
So something is cemented andthen kind of, you take your foot
off the gas a little bit andthere's this notion that, oh,
everything's all right nowbecause we've, we've, oh, we
fixed it.
Well done everything.
Yeah.
(12:35):
And that's not, not taken awayfrom that, but it's, um, no,
it's, it's been achieved.
I think maybe people who standto gain by maintaining the
status quo, go, yes, oh, you'vehad as much as you're getting,
just be satisfied.
And everyone goes, we need abreather will come back.
We'll see you soon.
So then the wave goes down andthen it momentum slowly builds
(12:58):
up again.
And, that kind of takes us tothe.
50, 60 seventies.
Simone Dear Vo, wrote a bookcalled The Second Sex and she
was a French writer.
And that kind of was seen as setin the tone for the next wave,
basically.
So at the bottom of the wavewhere, there's like an
undercurrent and like it's seenas a minority and then it picks
(13:19):
up into the mainstream a bit.
Like Me Too, I guess.
Like it picks up into themainstream, becomes in
everybody's consciousness and ittakes, but that.
Momentum takes years to ramp upagain.
Right.
so then in the sixties what wehad was this momentum ramping up
again about women being thesecond sex, middle class women
(13:39):
across, particularly America I'mtalking about, because that's
where Bell is based.
Middle class women across thecountry began to organize and
advocate for women's social andpolitical equality.
For example, JFK, he signed theEqual Pay Act in 1963 into law.
And that legislation was theidea that, women wouldn't be
(14:01):
paid less than men for doingcomparable work is the proper
term for it.
And this.
Act was the result of a group ofwomen by led by activists,
Esther Peterson.
And so can you see themomentum's coming up again,
right?
So we're into law or into themainstream.
The underlying notion of thistime of the sixties is that it
(14:22):
is above all else middle classand it is white women.
Mm.
This was led by a group calledthe Women's Liberation Movement,
and again, not taken away fromanything they did.
We could do so many episodes onthe that movement.
There's so many cool stories inthere.
For example, Gloria Stennergained national attention by
(14:42):
going undercover as a playboybunny and exposing the absolute
horrendous conditions.
Those women were faced toworking in the clubs.
but it's got this white focuswhile at the same time in
America you've got the civilrights movement that is in full
swing as well.
These two movements would tendto clash and there tend to be a
(15:04):
lot of tension between them.
I guess it's a scarcity mindsetthat there's only so much
attention.
Right.
And there's only so much timeand only so much money.
And I imagine that's maybe whatit is.
I could be wrong, I think.
Yeah.
And then there's that like I'mall right.
Jack thing.
Yeah.
Where you think well.
I've worked hard and I've sortedit out for myself, and that'll
(15:26):
have to do, but what a shame,what a missed opportunity, you
know?
Yeah.
Well, in a response to thisclashing came 1970s explicitly
black feminist organizations.
You've mentioned these verybriefly on the podcast before,
but there were these incrediblegroups were that you could be
(15:49):
openly and visibly black andqueer and feminist all in one
go.
there was the National BlackFeminist Organization in 1973
and there was anotherorganization called the South
Soul Sisters, and there wasquite a well known, collective
called the Koba Heat RiverCollective as well.
(16:10):
These groups.
Expressed that basically blackwomen were often thought to be a
disadvantage because they'rebeing hit by racism and sexism
at the same time.
It is, again, worth noting thatsome people see that they're
being hit by racism, sexism, andthat's doubly bad.
But actually Bell's position, aswe spoke about earlier is that,
(16:32):
the.
In an area of possibility thatBell was arguing that in their
struggle for freedom, thatpeople most exposed to different
forms of oppression understandbest how to dismantle them.
So she was saying actually,we're in a really advantageous
position here to move society onbecause we understand it from
(16:52):
all these different aspects.
Wow, what an absolutelyempowered take on really what
twist root really difficult.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
And she's like, actually no,this is an advantage, not a
disadvantage.
So I.
That what I've just explainedthere, very verbal diary is the
(17:13):
underlying, pins of what iscalled nowadays
intersectionality.
And that is, the idea that youridentity is all encompassing.
It's happening all at the sametime rather than.
You are a woman, tick, you are ablack T.
there's another quote here fromBell which kind of encompasses
(17:34):
that a little bit more if you'rehappy to read that out for me.
Quote, although the focus is onthe black female, our struggle
for liberation has significance.
Only if it takes place within afeminist movement that has, as
its fundamental goal, theliberation of all people.
Yeah.
(17:56):
So basically the bell feltmainstream feminists ignored how
different attributes can affectwhat your experiences are,
whether that be what classyou're from, what race you're
from, what sexuality you have.
And, intersectionality is oftenknown as the Bell hooks theory.
So this is a very well knowntheory in sociology today.
And it's called the Bell HooksTheory'cause she coined it.
(18:17):
How cool is that?
Excellent.
It's very exciting.
So her work, basically addressesdiversity.
It's as simple as that really.
And, how systems of oppressioncan, both perpetuate and defy
you at the same time based onyour identity.
That's very clever to come upwith a theory itself, but the
(18:38):
way Bell explains it in herworks and in her writing, like I
said, she's a prolific writer,also shows, what a talent she
was So she embraces colloquialstyle of her writing and she
likes to draw on, you know, thatrich culture.
She grew up with that richsouthern culture.
And oral traditions of thatculture as well.
(19:00):
She pulls on all that, whichmakes her writing really
relatable.
Um, and also it's this idea ofnot being single minded or
single focused because that initself is quite limiting.
So she was bringing all thesedifferent, streams of identity
into one.
We can talk about her work alittle bit more in terms of the,
(19:22):
I've written here, I felt likeshe identified the Andrew Tate
era before the Andrew Tate erawas a thing.
Does that make sense?
Oh.
And I know these are really bigheavy, I totally get, we're
talking about heavy stuff today.
We're talking about ideologiesand systems and that, but
basically be new straight fromthe off that the patriarchy is a
(19:42):
social political system wheremales are seen as superior to
everything, you know, and toeveryone.
And therefore they kind of buildup this entitlement, which is
very Andrew Tate.
A lot of what he talks about isentitlement and that they feel
like they therefore have a rightto dominate.
And in who their minds are weak,quote unquote.
(20:05):
Right.
And she called that out in theseventies, you know what I mean?
quite explicitly as well in herwriting.
'cause like I said, it was veryrelatable, very direct writing.
And hooks argued that.
Much like women, men aretherefore socialized into
accepting this ideology that thepatriarchy is the right thing,
(20:25):
and that they are also affectedin a way by their roles of
society that they have to fit inthis box of which is what toxic
masculinity is, right?
It's a burden for everyone.
It, it isn't, it isn't actuallyan advantage.
When all said and done, althoughthere are material benefits
clearly, um, yeah, it's, it'snot good for anybody.
(20:49):
Yeah.
There's a reason Will Smith feltlike he had to slap Chris Rock
at the Oscars.
Right.
It's because you feel like youhave to be in this box.
So Hooks was basically arguingthat men are brainwashed too
blowing my mind is that she is.
You know, okay.
Like, allow me to visit MetaphorV, which is someplace I often
(21:12):
go.
Yeah.
I love metaphor.
We're on the train.
She reminds me of, you know,when you're watching someone
being a translator and they'rein a conversation and they're
actively somehow listening,processing, and then outputting.
That conversation in an entirelynew language.
So she's not only looking atwhat's going on around her and
(21:37):
able to take herself out of itenough to accurately describe
things that are eluding everyoneelse.
She's living with disadvantagefor all the reasons you've
talked about, and she'sformulating that in such a way
that.
People aren't just going, Ugh,whatever, she's a persuasive
(21:58):
speaker as well.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
So she's doing all theseprocesses in the moment whilst
also living, living it in thattime.
She's not a scholar.
Reflecting back, I mean, thatis, it's pretty cool, isn't it?
That is a generational thinker.
That is a revolutionary thinker.
Incredible.
And yeah, absolutely hit thenail on the head because she.
(22:21):
I work in higher education,navigate in higher education as
an institution is difficult.
She's doing that at the sametime as all this as well.
Yeah.
So she's been around, it's justlike her side hustle, like, so
she's been around all theseuniversities.
She's working faculties, whichare very political places.
She's then becomes adistinguished professor, in
English at the City of New York.
(22:43):
She is writing books at the sametime.
She is.
Winning this, influence inpolitical space as well as, like
you say, analyzing it and,moving society forward.
And this is what I meant earlierby holding a premier to society.
She's in it like she's doing itas well.
So this theory basically definesher career of intersectionality.
(23:05):
She writes over 30 books, thesecover poetry, essays, memoirs,
children's books as well.
And they range in a wide rangeof topics, black men.
To the patriarchy, tomasculinity, to self-help and
self-reflection to her personalmemoirs, which is a completely
different style, isn't it, tosexuality as well.
(23:26):
And not only she's writing allthese books, she's winning
awards for them.
At the same time.
She's one of the women that wecould run the pod who actually
gets a lot of recognition in herlifetime.
so if you compare this to, Genkilast week, completely different,
right?
She wins the American BookAward.
She wins the, children's writingN-A-A-C-P image award for her
(23:51):
1999 Children's book, which wascalled Happy to Be Nappy.
And, her writing is alsotranslated into 15 different
languages, which shows that itkind of expands her just from
America.
And what she's doing through allthis writing is basically
challenging a system, hook ischallenging that and trying to
(24:13):
bring people along with her.
Basically.
Next thing that she does is sheexplores how, society isn't
just.
Black people and white people.
It has different ranges of skintones and color casts and, she
determines that people of adarker skin, darker skin tones
have less access andopportunity.
(24:33):
While the lighter your skin is,the more likely you are to
integrate with a white dominatedsociety.
It's heavy, but it's anotherlayer of what she's doing.
It's just depressing that we'reso shallow.
Mm-hmm.
Ignorant.
Yeah.
She sums up this really nicelywith a quote that I'm gonna ask
you to read, if that's okay.
(24:55):
Quote, to Be Born Light meantthat one was born with an
advantage recognized byeveryone.
To be born dark was to startlife handicapped with a serious
disadvantage.
Yeah.
So this is the idea of shadeism.
And that can lead tointernalized racism within the
African American communityleading it doesn't come from
(25:18):
thin air.
It comes from the kind of the,the prevailing culture.
But it, it's not just.
Black people.
It's not just people in theseventies, of course.
And there was an article that Isaw the other day about a woman
who was having plastic surgeriesto look in her words more
(25:41):
beautiful, but in actual factshe was Asian.
And what the surgeries to my eyewere doing was.
Making her look more white.
And it, it was just so sad thatin her mm-hmm.
Her mind, that was what wasmeant by prettier and yeah, I
think that that's, that's thatadvantage, disadvantage thing of
(26:05):
being lighter skinned because ifyou have a system where it's
defacto understood that to belighter is better, then yeah, of
course you're going to.
Or to be younger is better, orto be slimmer is better.
You're always going to bestriving and think of yourself
as being a less good version.
(26:27):
Yeah.
And she was able to stand up andsay, no, like to write a
children's and call it out.
Embracing, yeah, embracing yournatural hair, embracing who you
are and your own beauty is sucha joyous.
To that absolute shit show of asystem.
(26:49):
So as you can see, she'sachieved such a lot Bell, and
she's, you know, really labeledand got society to think about
things, but that doesn't meanthat she was exempt from
criticism and critiques at all.
I've got three critiques thatI've kind of picked out from the
research.
the first of the critiques wasthe, bell.
Uh, speaks only to the blackexperience of black people in
(27:11):
the United States.
Which I thought was quite ironicconsidering her theories all
about intersectionality, but,you know, fine.
But this idea that she was quitesiloed and that's because mainly
'cause that's was herexperience.
That's what she could refer to.
And she often used the wordblack to encompass basically all
the oppressed, when actually, ittakes many different people to
(27:32):
build a world, and particularly,in multicultural societies like
America, like Britain, and itfelt like she was bundling them.
In a similar vein, anothercritique was that hook failed to
draw a connection between womenof varying backgrounds.
So it was often focused also ona Western experience, while
actually there are differentsystems of oppression all over
(27:54):
the world, you know?
Right.
And obviously we, back then, wewere in like a mid stage
capitalism society, whilst notevery country had that.
To be fair, hooks often took onfeedback and I think that shows
her respect for academia and herrespect for those circles.
And she later expanded certaindefinitions, to identify
(28:16):
different styles of patriarchy.
Um, and then the final critiquethat I picked out was the idea
that, hooks would inviteoppressors or those by
oppressors.
Typically, she meant white malesto mindfully self critique, and
people felt that that wasalmost.
(28:37):
they kind of questioned if thatwas really possible in a way.
So this idea that would theyactually interrogate themselves
or would they actually reinforcetheir opinion a little bit more?
Like would they double downrather than critique?
Was the criticism of her thatshe was giving them a platform
to kind of.
(28:57):
Cleanse themselves publicly forthings that were just wrong and
she shouldn't have been engagingdirectly.
I think it was more the, hersolution of self-critique and
self-reflection wasn't maybeenough.
Maybe there was more that couldbe done rather than asking, the
(29:19):
big billionaires kind of just tohave a little think about what
they've done.
I think they were maybe wantingwhen you put it that way.
So, bell encouraged athree-prong strategy for the
self, critique, which.
Was basically honestconfrontation, so actually
being, owning up and steppingup, talking about it.
(29:40):
So dialogue and then, reciprocalinteraction.
So this idea of actually beingopen turning up to the party and
interacting and.
Again, having come from thehigher education world and
having been had experience ofcorporate systems, to me this
sounds beautifully CorporateAmerica system of how to handle
(30:01):
a dispute.
Like there's a lovely threesteps, simple approach.
One of them is alwaysself-reflection.
One of them is always, having afeedback loop and all these
beautiful things that is in thecorporate world today.
Me coming in this quite, um, notblind, but, with maybe limited
knowledge to me that I cantotally see how that,'cause it
(30:24):
fits perfectly.
You could put that in a littlegrid, you could stick that on a
poster.
But actually, if people arearguing, is this actually gonna
work?
Is this enough?
It doesn't guarantee.
It sounds from everything you'vesaid, like she was open to that
though, that it, it's the spiritof academic inquiry to come up
with a theory, give it a chanceto thrive or to fail and then to
(30:48):
adapt based on the outcome.
So maybe that was she went,let's try this.
And then people went, ah, thatkind of sucks because this,
this, this.
Yeah.
And maybe that is still.
Foundation of more progress and,and more change.
This is version one, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's hard in a cynical time tothink that somebody's gonna sit
(31:10):
down, have a good think and go,yeah.
These systems that arematerially advantaging me and
cost other people dearly.
Um.
Actually cost me my soul.
But let's leave that aside.
I maybe shouldn't be doing them.
Like the idea that anyone'sgonna be changed by that.
I can understand that criticism.
(31:31):
It's pretty optimistic.
I'm so pleased that you've gotthat side of her across because
I think it's one that isn'tnecessarily written about too
much, but to me it felt that shewas very open and very, you
know, let's work together onthis I don't think she felt.
To my mind that she had all theanswers.
I don't think that's what washappening at all.
So I think it's reallyinteresting that that she did
(31:53):
respond to criticism and, andalso that's good because she was
known as the child who alwaysspoke back.
But to give as good as you getas well, I think that's really
important, isn't it?
It's really important to acceptas well as give I think
sometimes.
Yeah.
You know, absolutely.
bell also, taught at the.
Berea College, B-E-R-E-A, BRECollege, which was a college
(32:18):
that actually sponsored her togive an address for their
women's studies programs in thenineties.
So she had a history with themand it is a important college.
in Bells story, it is a placewhere tuition is free and, her
values very much aligned withtheir values.
That college focuses very muchon underrepresented students
where they can come and feelincluded.
(32:39):
They eventually named a, centerthere after her, the Bell Hook
Center, and the college hadanti-racist beginnings anyway,
and it was a college that was inKentucky, so that's her birth
town.
So that's where she wanted to goback home really and give back
to the, yeah.
the citizens of Kentucky.
(33:00):
And she wanted to, what do youcall it?
Like go, yeah.
Going back to your roots.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely.
And she actually joined theirfaculty in 2004.
Bell pushed society to thinkdifferently through her theories
and well argue critique.
Basically, she made changes tofeminism.
(33:22):
That's pretty cool.
even in 2016, she was still,like giving commentary to the
feminism where Beyonce'sLemonade album came out in 2016
and she quite heavily criticizesor criticized Beyonce's album
because of Beyonce's use of theword freedom.
And, you know, she felt that shewas kind of using freedom to
(33:44):
make.
Money basically, and use thatnotion and kind of turn it into
a capitalist venture.
Um, you know, Beyonce can't wineveryone round.
Okay.
She's good, but you know, shecan't win'em all.
Like I said, bell Hooks empirestretches way beyond her
Kentucky roots.
Her voice impacted the wholeworld.
As recent as 2020, her writingscontinue to serve society today.
(34:10):
Her book Cells took an absolutesurge amid the Black Lives
Matter movement, which wasignited by the deaths of George
Floyd and Breonna Taylor in2020.
And her book all about love.
New Visions entered the New YorkTimes bestseller over 20 years
after its first publication.
Also in 2020.
She became one of Timesmagazine's Top 100 Women of the
(34:32):
Year, and they.
gave a little quote, which Iabsolutely loved and wanted to
end on, which they describedBell as that rare rock star of
public intellectual who reacheswide by being accessible.
Wow.
Fantastic.
Yeah, and that is, very skimmedeverything that Bell did.
(34:55):
She did, did so many books.
It's insane to pull up all thedifferent things and it's still
so current and so fresh andthat, you know, yes, her, her
criticisms of later feministblack women working in America
notwithstanding, I mean she isof her era and there was, you
(35:15):
know, there was a definite shiftin our mentalities about.
How we engage with capitalism aswomen.
But I think the fact that herbooks are, are coming to the
fore again and are helpingpeople to come to terms with
some really crunchy problemsthat are happening today.
(35:38):
That's, it just speaks to howfresh her approach still is.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
You know, we get taughtintersectionality at work and
it's become such an underpinninglayer of society and she coined
it.
It's, it's wild, isn't it?
(35:58):
'cause these, we come along andwe benefit from the work that
has gone before to an extentwhen, you know.
Like my education is a littlebit hit and miss, a little
piecemeal and you know, do whatI can.
But the, these ideas that seemintuitive and like, oh, well
(36:19):
that must always have beenthere.
And then you read about thesuffragettes and how
exclusionary their efforts were.
You know, again, as you say, notto take away from the things
they did address, but there was,there was racism, there was
privilege, there was a lot.
That wasn't taken on board andnow we sort of go, well, yeah,
out of course, intersectionalityat work.
(36:41):
Of course we do because it justmakes sense to, but that didn't
just spring out of thin air.
That that is the hard work andrevolutionary thinking and
persuasive.
Writing and skill of, of peoplelike bell hooks.
it's a wonderful topic and sotimely.
Oh, thanks very much.
audio2663295054 (37:07):
Thank you for listening to this episode of She
Changed History.
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Shall we begin?
Yeah, let's do it.
Thank you.
Hi.
Hi Vicky.
Hello, how are you?
Yeah, I'm good.
Thank you.
You look fabulous today.
Well, thank you.
We're going out to dinnertonight, so Chris White shirt,
little extra.
Oh, we're going to the Smokery,so I'm very excited.
(00:28):
Oh, hello?
Is that the N?
Yeah.
Under the nut or something?
Is that one?
No, this one is the Y ValleyFish Smokery, and it's like.
Posh seafood, and it is a doover dinner for Charlie's
birthday, which was earlier inthe month, and we had to cancel,
and I'm gonna say we had tocancel.
Did he?
(00:49):
Oh, he was heavily hungover.
Charlie boy, he wascatastrophically hungover, so
well, he was 21 really leaninginto the 21st birthday vibes.
Yeah.
Have you got any plans thisweekend?
Oh yeah.
We're going to the historyfestival, aren't we?
On Sunday?
Yeah.
That'll be amazing.
I'm really looking forward tothat.
and we have some fancy t-shirts.
Fingers crossed they'll arrive.
They've got one more posthopefully tomorrow.
(01:09):
Oh my.
Okay.
I know.
Come on.
T-shirts crossed.
I know I'm praying to this.
If not, we're just gonna have toput like.
Post-it notes on enormoust-shirt.
But in between time I've got astory for you.
Would you like to know?
Yes, please.
Brilliant.
I've got a little introductionfor you.
today we are going to talk abouta little girl who held up a
mirror to the world, who got theworld to think, consider and
(01:32):
challenge what they were doing.
It wasn't easy, but this littlegirl lit up ideas in millions of
people by doing one simplething, including them.
This is a story of inclusivityat its finest, and how igniting
critical thinking has the powerto move the world on one tiny
step at a time.
This is the story of Gloria JeanWatkins, otherwise known as Bell
(01:56):
Hooks.
Oh, how exciting.
Have you heard about Belle?
Heard the name.
It's a name I know.
Mm-hmm.
And I have almost nothing elsein my mind about her, so I am so
excited to.
To hear more.
It's super fresh.
That's exciting.
So we are going to the 1950s.
we're going to a small towncalled Hopkinsville, which is in
(02:19):
Kentucky.
USA.
So we are thinking full circledresses.
We're thinking bluegrass music.
We're thinking bourbon, doublebreasted suits, and Chevrolets
the color of candy.
But it's also important to notethat at this time, segregation
is there and it's completelyvicious throughout the south.
(02:39):
This is where Gloria JeanWatkins was born.
Her grandmother nicknamed HerGlory.
How adorable is that?
Oh, she grew up where her fatherwas a janitor and her mother was
a maid for white families.
She was born in 1952 and, hereducation was mainly segregated.
but that didn't stop herAbsolutely loving the classroom.
(03:03):
She was a little sponge of allthings knowledge.
She talks about her childhoodquite a bit in certain memoirs.
she later described herchildhood that she actually
struggled to create self andidentity whilst growing up and.
She grew up with a rich, magicalworld of southern black culture
(03:23):
that was sometimes paradisicaland other times terrifying.
So that kind of shows us thatreal kind of juxtaposition
That's it.
I guess your.
Always in a family you're in amicrocosm and in a culture,
you're in a microcosm.
Mm-hmm.
And then you have the largersociety that you live in.
(03:45):
Yeah.
And those two things can bevery, very different.
One can almost be a retreat fromthe other.
So I think so it sounds like herfamily was strong and loving,
but the circumstances that theylived in because of the time and
her place that they lived inwere extremely difficult.
You're right.
And that support was very muchthere.
(04:06):
Like she had a lot of supportgrowing up in her community, she
loved books and writing and shepracticed a lot her mom would
tell her off for reading late atnight with her little torch on.
She actually got some of herearly writings published in the
Sunday School magazine, whichwas really sweet, cute, and but
she was told off quite heavilyas a child for talking back,
(04:29):
which is a theme you'll noticethat continues throughout her
life, this idea of challengingand, defiance.
Integration in schools came inthe late 1960s while she was
still at school, and that was areally big experience for her.
As you can imagine, it very muchinspired again her later life
(04:49):
when she actually became ateacher.
Gloria graduated fromHopkinsville High School and
then she went on to not justanywhere Stanford, and she went
Wow.
On with a scholarship.
Oh, so she was a clever, aclever student, yeah.
All that reading and all thatsupport and all that is paying
off.
She's still really young at thispoint.
at.
(05:09):
Age, just 19.
She wrote her first and arguablyher most well-known work, which
was a book called Ain't i AWoman, black Women and Feminism,
which is a title that was alsoan ode.
so Joer Truth, um, who we shoulddefinitely do an episode on.
so Bell writes this book and itisn't publisher another 10
(05:31):
years, but it is seen as acomplete landmark book, of.
Slavery's legacy and blackculture today, and it gets
picked up, the success of thisbook can't be undermined.
in the book, bell argued aboutactual true liberation.
just to explore the book in alittle bit more detail, I've
(05:53):
picked out five quotes I'll justhoping that you could read them
all out and then we'll digestthem, so quote.
The history of black women isthe history of a resilience that
defies all odds.
My beauty is not confined tosocietal standards.
It is rooted in my strength andhistory.
(06:13):
The power of a black woman lieswithin her ability to embrace
her authentic self.
Our bodies are temples, notobjects of ownership or
ridicule.
I am not defined by my past.
I'm defined by the endlesspossibilities of my future.
I mean, yeah, they're prettystrong.
(06:33):
I'm not gonna lie.
The reason I picked out thosespecific codes is for a few
different reasons.
One, it just shows, oh, mate,how recent segregation is,
right?
This book is published in 1981,right?
And in there she talks about ourbodies are temples, not objects
of, ownership.
Um, it is rooted in my history.
I am not defined by my past.
(06:54):
These are all things that.
You know, she's a young woman atthis point and she's feeling the
effects of her eldergenerations, and it just talks
about, to me anyway, it wastalking about how enslavement
actually comes into modernsociety.
So when you hear about slavery,and this is something the media
(07:15):
does quite heavily, I think, isthey always use black and white
imagery.
And they always use, the wordancestor, which makes you feel
like it's hundreds of years agoand actually we're talking one
generation back.
Really?
That's where segregation.
Right.
we are not talking, Ancienthistory, you know, so for
(07:36):
example, the last Jim Crow lawwas overturned in 1965.
And just because a law isoverturned doesn't mean that
everything changes overnight.
Right?
I'm gonna really try very hardnot to rant.
Um, please do.
I love a car rent.
They make me so happy at a timewhen there.
(07:57):
Factions in America activelylobbying to teach, and I'm gonna
use scare quotes on the wordhistory as this kind of positive
spin machine about how gloriousour nation is without
acknowledging any of the truthsthat.
(08:19):
Went on in living memory.
These are not things, uh, wedon't, even if they happened,
you know, hundreds of years ago,it is still informative and
important to acknowledge them,but they happened in living
memory.
Mm-hmm.
Our parents, our grandparents,in some cases ourselves, were
(08:40):
alive when people wereexperiencing this.
And we have the sheer arroganceto suggest it shouldn't be
taught.
But you, you're, you've madesuch an interesting point there
about the black and whitephotography when they're talking
about enslavement and racism.
I, Bethany there was color.
Yeah.
You know, it wasn't that longago.
Mm-hmm.
(09:01):
The other reason I picked outthose quotes, because they focus
particularly on black women andwhat being a black.
Woman actually means thatthey're kind of different layers
of, Exclusion if you like, letalone if you add queer into that
mix as well.
Society often imposesstereotypes on black women
(09:22):
forcing them to conform to theselike limited standards.
Like you are either in that boxor you're in that box, however,
the quotes that you just readout.
reminders that a black woman'strue power lies in the idea of
rejecting these limitations.
Bell was very much focused on,embracing her genuine self.
(09:42):
You can see here I'm defined bythe endless possibilities.
So just this absolute passionand drive for the next, just
wanting more.
And it is totally okay to wantmore, and I just love that about
her.
She's very unapologetic, in thatsense, We are like during the
seventies now, bell pursuesgraduate work in So many places
(10:03):
she becomes really adept at likethe scholar world.
So she works for the Universityof Wisconsin Madison.
She works for the University ofCalifornia Santa Cruz.
she begins also publishingpoetry as well.
So she, after the success ofthis book, and it's around this
time, she start using her penname, which is Bell Hooks.
She decided to take the nameBell Hooks after her
(10:25):
grandmother.
who was named to have sharpopinions apparently, which I
really enjoyed that phrase.
I kept it in.
And she chose to, every time yousee bell hooks, you'll see it's
with a lowercase B and alowercase h.
And that's because she wanted toshift the attention towards the
ideas rather than her identity.
(10:45):
Okay.
Um, so you'll see wherever BellHooks is written, and it's
always in lowercase.
basically she's a marketeerdream.
Like Bell knew exactly what shewanted.
She knew, her message, she knewher brand, she knew her purpose.
She had it absolute nailed.
And it's shown, oh my God, inall her writing.
She's a prolific writer and hermessage is consistent
(11:08):
throughout, which is something Ireally do admire.
But there's nothing wrong withpivoting, but having that
compass and that steely, idealsand keeping to them I think is
really, to me, I find that very,very inspiring.
Belle was all about, equalityand she knew that feminism in
particular didn't hinge on justone thing.
(11:30):
It brought in loads of differentthings.
So I'm gonna give you a verysmall history of feminism in the
seventies.
Is that bring it, you'd like toknow about It certainly is.
Bring the first wave.
Let's be having it.
So first wave, you're absolutelyright, was 1920s.
(11:52):
And that was when women got thevote basically.
And do you know why they'recalled waves?
I do not.
Um, it's because they basicallypeak and trough.
So 1920s came, wow.
We had this really big, upswingof, equality and something as
cements in that wave.
So in the 1920s it was very muchbacking the vote.
(12:15):
Then you'll notice that at theend of the wave it kind of CDO
down and um, the fight tends toslow.
So something is cemented andthen kind of, you take your foot
off the gas a little bit andthere's this notion that, oh,
everything's all right nowbecause we've, we've, oh, we
fixed it.
Well done everything.
Yeah.
(12:35):
And that's not, not taken awayfrom that, but it's, um, no,
it's, it's been achieved.
I think maybe people who standto gain by maintaining the
status quo, go, yes, oh, you'vehad as much as you're getting,
just be satisfied.
And everyone goes, we need abreather will come back.
We'll see you soon.
So then the wave goes down andthen it momentum slowly builds
(12:58):
up again.
And, that kind of takes us tothe.
50, 60 seventies.
Simone Dear Vo, wrote a bookcalled The Second Sex and she
was a French writer.
And that kind of was seen as setin the tone for the next wave,
basically.
So at the bottom of the wavewhere, there's like an
undercurrent and like it's seenas a minority and then it picks
(13:19):
up into the mainstream a bit.
Like Me Too, I guess.
Like it picks up into themainstream, becomes in
everybody's consciousness and ittakes, but that.
Momentum takes years to ramp upagain.
Right.
so then in the sixties what wehad was this momentum ramping up
again about women being thesecond sex, middle class women
(13:39):
across, particularly America I'mtalking about, because that's
where Bell is based.
Middle class women across thecountry began to organize and
advocate for women's social andpolitical equality.
For example, JFK, he signed theEqual Pay Act in 1963 into law.
And that legislation was theidea that, women wouldn't be
(14:01):
paid less than men for doingcomparable work is the proper
term for it.
And this.
Act was the result of a group ofwomen by led by activists,
Esther Peterson.
And so can you see themomentum's coming up again,
right?
So we're into law or into themainstream.
The underlying notion of thistime of the sixties is that it
(14:22):
is above all else middle classand it is white women.
Mm.
This was led by a group calledthe Women's Liberation Movement,
and again, not taken away fromanything they did.
We could do so many episodes onthe that movement.
There's so many cool stories inthere.
For example, Gloria Stennergained national attention by
(14:42):
going undercover as a playboybunny and exposing the absolute
horrendous conditions.
Those women were faced toworking in the clubs.
but it's got this white focuswhile at the same time in
America you've got the civilrights movement that is in full
swing as well.
These two movements would tendto clash and there tend to be a
(15:04):
lot of tension between them.
I guess it's a scarcity mindsetthat there's only so much
attention.
Right.
And there's only so much timeand only so much money.
And I imagine that's maybe whatit is.
I could be wrong, I think.
Yeah.
And then there's that like I'mall right.
Jack thing.
Yeah.
Where you think well.
I've worked hard and I've sortedit out for myself, and that'll
(15:26):
have to do, but what a shame,what a missed opportunity, you
know?
Yeah.
Well, in a response to thisclashing came 1970s explicitly
black feminist organizations.
You've mentioned these verybriefly on the podcast before,
but there were these incrediblegroups were that you could be
(15:49):
openly and visibly black andqueer and feminist all in one
go.
there was the National BlackFeminist Organization in 1973
and there was anotherorganization called the South
Soul Sisters, and there wasquite a well known, collective
called the Koba Heat RiverCollective as well.
(16:10):
These groups.
Expressed that basically blackwomen were often thought to be a
disadvantage because they'rebeing hit by racism and sexism
at the same time.
It is, again, worth noting thatsome people see that they're
being hit by racism, sexism, andthat's doubly bad.
But actually Bell's position, aswe spoke about earlier is that,
(16:32):
the.
In an area of possibility thatBell was arguing that in their
struggle for freedom, thatpeople most exposed to different
forms of oppression understandbest how to dismantle them.
So she was saying actually,we're in a really advantageous
position here to move society onbecause we understand it from
(16:52):
all these different aspects.
Wow, what an absolutelyempowered take on really what
twist root really difficult.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
And she's like, actually no,this is an advantage, not a
disadvantage.
So I.
That what I've just explainedthere, very verbal diary is the
(17:13):
underlying, pins of what iscalled nowadays
intersectionality.
And that is, the idea that youridentity is all encompassing.
It's happening all at the sametime rather than.
You are a woman, tick, you are ablack T.
there's another quote here fromBell which kind of encompasses
(17:34):
that a little bit more if you'rehappy to read that out for me.
Quote, although the focus is onthe black female, our struggle
for liberation has significance.
Only if it takes place within afeminist movement that has, as
its fundamental goal, theliberation of all people.
Yeah.
(17:56):
So basically the bell feltmainstream feminists ignored how
different attributes can affectwhat your experiences are,
whether that be what classyou're from, what race you're
from, what sexuality you have.
And, intersectionality is oftenknown as the Bell hooks theory.
So this is a very well knowntheory in sociology today.
And it's called the Bell HooksTheory'cause she coined it.
(18:17):
How cool is that?
Excellent.
It's very exciting.
So her work, basically addressesdiversity.
It's as simple as that really.
And, how systems of oppressioncan, both perpetuate and defy
you at the same time based onyour identity.
That's very clever to come upwith a theory itself, but the
(18:38):
way Bell explains it in herworks and in her writing, like I
said, she's a prolific writer,also shows, what a talent she
was So she embraces colloquialstyle of her writing and she
likes to draw on, you know, thatrich culture.
She grew up with that richsouthern culture.
And oral traditions of thatculture as well.
(19:00):
She pulls on all that, whichmakes her writing really
relatable.
Um, and also it's this idea ofnot being single minded or
single focused because that initself is quite limiting.
So she was bringing all thesedifferent, streams of identity
into one.
We can talk about her work alittle bit more in terms of the,
(19:22):
I've written here, I felt likeshe identified the Andrew Tate
era before the Andrew Tate erawas a thing.
Does that make sense?
Oh.
And I know these are really bigheavy, I totally get, we're
talking about heavy stuff today.
We're talking about ideologiesand systems and that, but
basically be new straight fromthe off that the patriarchy is a
(19:42):
social political system wheremales are seen as superior to
everything, you know, and toeveryone.
And therefore they kind of buildup this entitlement, which is
very Andrew Tate.
A lot of what he talks about isentitlement and that they feel
like they therefore have a rightto dominate.
And in who their minds are weak,quote unquote.
(20:05):
Right.
And she called that out in theseventies, you know what I mean?
quite explicitly as well in herwriting.
'cause like I said, it was veryrelatable, very direct writing.
And hooks argued that.
Much like women, men aretherefore socialized into
accepting this ideology that thepatriarchy is the right thing,
(20:25):
and that they are also affectedin a way by their roles of
society that they have to fit inthis box of which is what toxic
masculinity is, right?
It's a burden for everyone.
It, it isn't, it isn't actuallyan advantage.
When all said and done, althoughthere are material benefits
clearly, um, yeah, it's, it'snot good for anybody.
(20:49):
Yeah.
There's a reason Will Smith feltlike he had to slap Chris Rock
at the Oscars.
Right.
It's because you feel like youhave to be in this box.
So Hooks was basically arguingthat men are brainwashed too
blowing my mind is that she is.
You know, okay.
Like, allow me to visit MetaphorV, which is someplace I often
(21:12):
go.
Yeah.
I love metaphor.
We're on the train.
She reminds me of, you know,when you're watching someone
being a translator and they'rein a conversation and they're
actively somehow listening,processing, and then outputting.
That conversation in an entirelynew language.
So she's not only looking atwhat's going on around her and
(21:37):
able to take herself out of itenough to accurately describe
things that are eluding everyoneelse.
She's living with disadvantagefor all the reasons you've
talked about, and she'sformulating that in such a way
that.
People aren't just going, Ugh,whatever, she's a persuasive
(21:58):
speaker as well.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
So she's doing all theseprocesses in the moment whilst
also living, living it in thattime.
She's not a scholar.
Reflecting back, I mean, thatis, it's pretty cool, isn't it?
That is a generational thinker.
That is a revolutionary thinker.
Incredible.
And yeah, absolutely hit thenail on the head because she.
(22:21):
I work in higher education,navigate in higher education as
an institution is difficult.
She's doing that at the sametime as all this as well.
Yeah.
So she's been around, it's justlike her side hustle, like, so
she's been around all theseuniversities.
She's working faculties, whichare very political places.
She's then becomes adistinguished professor, in
English at the City of New York.
(22:43):
She is writing books at the sametime.
She is.
Winning this, influence inpolitical space as well as, like
you say, analyzing it and,moving society forward.
And this is what I meant earlierby holding a premier to society.
She's in it like she's doing itas well.
So this theory basically definesher career of intersectionality.
(23:05):
She writes over 30 books, thesecover poetry, essays, memoirs,
children's books as well.
And they range in a wide rangeof topics, black men.
To the patriarchy, tomasculinity, to self-help and
self-reflection to her personalmemoirs, which is a completely
different style, isn't it, tosexuality as well.
(23:26):
And not only she's writing allthese books, she's winning
awards for them.
At the same time.
She's one of the women that wecould run the pod who actually
gets a lot of recognition in herlifetime.
so if you compare this to, Genkilast week, completely different,
right?
She wins the American BookAward.
She wins the, children's writingN-A-A-C-P image award for her
(23:51):
1999 Children's book, which wascalled Happy to Be Nappy.
And, her writing is alsotranslated into 15 different
languages, which shows that itkind of expands her just from
America.
And what she's doing through allthis writing is basically
challenging a system, hook ischallenging that and trying to
(24:13):
bring people along with her.
Basically.
Next thing that she does is sheexplores how, society isn't
just.
Black people and white people.
It has different ranges of skintones and color casts and, she
determines that people of adarker skin, darker skin tones
have less access andopportunity.
(24:33):
While the lighter your skin is,the more likely you are to
integrate with a white dominatedsociety.
It's heavy, but it's anotherlayer of what she's doing.
It's just depressing that we'reso shallow.
Mm-hmm.
Ignorant.
Yeah.
She sums up this really nicelywith a quote that I'm gonna ask
you to read, if that's okay.
(24:55):
Quote, to Be Born Light meantthat one was born with an
advantage recognized byeveryone.
To be born dark was to startlife handicapped with a serious
disadvantage.
Yeah.
So this is the idea of shadeism.
And that can lead tointernalized racism within the
African American communityleading it doesn't come from
(25:18):
thin air.
It comes from the kind of the,the prevailing culture.
But it, it's not just.
Black people.
It's not just people in theseventies, of course.
And there was an article that Isaw the other day about a woman
who was having plastic surgeriesto look in her words more
(25:41):
beautiful, but in actual factshe was Asian.
And what the surgeries to my eyewere doing was.
Making her look more white.
And it, it was just so sad thatin her mm-hmm.
Her mind, that was what wasmeant by prettier and yeah, I
think that that's, that's thatadvantage, disadvantage thing of
(26:05):
being lighter skinned because ifyou have a system where it's
defacto understood that to belighter is better, then yeah, of
course you're going to.
Or to be younger is better, orto be slimmer is better.
You're always going to bestriving and think of yourself
as being a less good version.
(26:27):
Yeah.
And she was able to stand up andsay, no, like to write a
children's and call it out.
Embracing, yeah, embracing yournatural hair, embracing who you
are and your own beauty is sucha joyous.
To that absolute shit show of asystem.
(26:49):
So as you can see, she'sachieved such a lot Bell, and
she's, you know, really labeledand got society to think about
things, but that doesn't meanthat she was exempt from
criticism and critiques at all.
I've got three critiques thatI've kind of picked out from the
research.
the first of the critiques wasthe, bell.
Uh, speaks only to the blackexperience of black people in
(27:11):
the United States.
Which I thought was quite ironicconsidering her theories all
about intersectionality, but,you know, fine.
But this idea that she was quitesiloed and that's because mainly
'cause that's was herexperience.
That's what she could refer to.
And she often used the wordblack to encompass basically all
the oppressed, when actually, ittakes many different people to
(27:32):
build a world, and particularly,in multicultural societies like
America, like Britain, and itfelt like she was bundling them.
In a similar vein, anothercritique was that hook failed to
draw a connection between womenof varying backgrounds.
So it was often focused also ona Western experience, while
actually there are differentsystems of oppression all over
(27:54):
the world, you know?
Right.
And obviously we, back then, wewere in like a mid stage
capitalism society, whilst notevery country had that.
To be fair, hooks often took onfeedback and I think that shows
her respect for academia and herrespect for those circles.
And she later expanded certaindefinitions, to identify
(28:16):
different styles of patriarchy.
Um, and then the final critiquethat I picked out was the idea
that, hooks would inviteoppressors or those by
oppressors.
Typically, she meant white malesto mindfully self critique, and
people felt that that wasalmost.
(28:37):
they kind of questioned if thatwas really possible in a way.
So this idea that would theyactually interrogate themselves
or would they actually reinforcetheir opinion a little bit more?
Like would they double downrather than critique?
Was the criticism of her thatshe was giving them a platform
to kind of.
(28:57):
Cleanse themselves publicly forthings that were just wrong and
she shouldn't have been engagingdirectly.
I think it was more the, hersolution of self-critique and
self-reflection wasn't maybeenough.
Maybe there was more that couldbe done rather than asking, the
(29:19):
big billionaires kind of just tohave a little think about what
they've done.
I think they were maybe wantingwhen you put it that way.
So, bell encouraged athree-prong strategy for the
self, critique, which.
Was basically honestconfrontation, so actually
being, owning up and steppingup, talking about it.
(29:40):
So dialogue and then, reciprocalinteraction.
So this idea of actually beingopen turning up to the party and
interacting and.
Again, having come from thehigher education world and
having been had experience ofcorporate systems, to me this
sounds beautifully CorporateAmerica system of how to handle
(30:01):
a dispute.
Like there's a lovely threesteps, simple approach.
One of them is alwaysself-reflection.
One of them is always, having afeedback loop and all these
beautiful things that is in thecorporate world today.
Me coming in this quite, um, notblind, but, with maybe limited
knowledge to me that I cantotally see how that,'cause it
(30:24):
fits perfectly.
You could put that in a littlegrid, you could stick that on a
poster.
But actually, if people arearguing, is this actually gonna
work?
Is this enough?
It doesn't guarantee.
It sounds from everything you'vesaid, like she was open to that
though, that it, it's the spiritof academic inquiry to come up
with a theory, give it a chanceto thrive or to fail and then to
(30:48):
adapt based on the outcome.
So maybe that was she went,let's try this.
And then people went, ah, thatkind of sucks because this,
this, this.
Yeah.
And maybe that is still.
Foundation of more progress and,and more change.
This is version one, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's hard in a cynical time tothink that somebody's gonna sit
(31:10):
down, have a good think and go,yeah.
These systems that arematerially advantaging me and
cost other people dearly.
Um.
Actually cost me my soul.
But let's leave that aside.
I maybe shouldn't be doing them.
Like the idea that anyone'sgonna be changed by that.
I can understand that criticism.
(31:31):
It's pretty optimistic.
I'm so pleased that you've gotthat side of her across because
I think it's one that isn'tnecessarily written about too
much, but to me it felt that shewas very open and very, you
know, let's work together onthis I don't think she felt.
To my mind that she had all theanswers.
I don't think that's what washappening at all.
So I think it's reallyinteresting that that she did
(31:53):
respond to criticism and, andalso that's good because she was
known as the child who alwaysspoke back.
But to give as good as you getas well, I think that's really
important, isn't it?
It's really important to acceptas well as give I think
sometimes.
Yeah.
You know, absolutely.
bell also, taught at the.
Berea College, B-E-R-E-A, BRECollege, which was a college
(32:18):
that actually sponsored her togive an address for their
women's studies programs in thenineties.
So she had a history with themand it is a important college.
in Bells story, it is a placewhere tuition is free and, her
values very much aligned withtheir values.
That college focuses very muchon underrepresented students
where they can come and feelincluded.
(32:39):
They eventually named a, centerthere after her, the Bell Hook
Center, and the college hadanti-racist beginnings anyway,
and it was a college that was inKentucky, so that's her birth
town.
So that's where she wanted to goback home really and give back
to the, yeah.
the citizens of Kentucky.
(33:00):
And she wanted to, what do youcall it?
Like go, yeah.
Going back to your roots.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely.
And she actually joined theirfaculty in 2004.
Bell pushed society to thinkdifferently through her theories
and well argue critique.
Basically, she made changes tofeminism.
(33:22):
That's pretty cool.
even in 2016, she was still,like giving commentary to the
feminism where Beyonce'sLemonade album came out in 2016
and she quite heavily criticizesor criticized Beyonce's album
because of Beyonce's use of theword freedom.
And, you know, she felt that shewas kind of using freedom to
(33:44):
make.
Money basically, and use thatnotion and kind of turn it into
a capitalist venture.
Um, you know, Beyonce can't wineveryone round.
Okay.
She's good, but you know, shecan't win'em all.
Like I said, bell Hooks empirestretches way beyond her
Kentucky roots.
Her voice impacted the wholeworld.
As recent as 2020, her writingscontinue to serve society today.
(34:10):
Her book Cells took an absolutesurge amid the Black Lives
Matter movement, which wasignited by the deaths of George
Floyd and Breonna Taylor in2020.
And her book all about love.
New Visions entered the New YorkTimes bestseller over 20 years
after its first publication.
Also in 2020.
She became one of Timesmagazine's Top 100 Women of the
(34:32):
Year, and they.
gave a little quote, which Iabsolutely loved and wanted to
end on, which they describedBell as that rare rock star of
public intellectual who reacheswide by being accessible.
Wow.
Fantastic.
Yeah, and that is, very skimmedeverything that Bell did.
(34:55):
She did, did so many books.
It's insane to pull up all thedifferent things and it's still
so current and so fresh andthat, you know, yes, her, her
criticisms of later feministblack women working in America
notwithstanding, I mean she isof her era and there was, you
(35:15):
know, there was a definite shiftin our mentalities about.
How we engage with capitalism aswomen.
But I think the fact that herbooks are, are coming to the
fore again and are helpingpeople to come to terms with
some really crunchy problemsthat are happening today.
(35:38):
That's, it just speaks to howfresh her approach still is.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
You know, we get taughtintersectionality at work and
it's become such an underpinninglayer of society and she coined
it.
It's, it's wild, isn't it?
(35:58):
'cause these, we come along andwe benefit from the work that
has gone before to an extentwhen, you know.
Like my education is a littlebit hit and miss, a little
piecemeal and you know, do whatI can.
But the, these ideas that seemintuitive and like, oh, well
(36:19):
that must always have beenthere.
And then you read about thesuffragettes and how
exclusionary their efforts were.
You know, again, as you say, notto take away from the things
they did address, but there was,there was racism, there was
privilege, there was a lot.
That wasn't taken on board andnow we sort of go, well, yeah,
out of course, intersectionalityat work.
(36:41):
Of course we do because it justmakes sense to, but that didn't
just spring out of thin air.
That that is the hard work andrevolutionary thinking and
persuasive.
Writing and skill of, of peoplelike bell hooks.
it's a wonderful topic and sotimely.
Oh, thanks very much.
audio2663295054 (37:07):
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