would not exist without hooks’ urging to “talk back”. I came to Black radical resistance through her.
bell’s reminder, in Teaching to Transgress, that “no education is politically neutral” have been my anchor and guiding light as a teacher, mentor and scholar. So much of my professional identity, which bleeds into my whole self, I owe to the work, ideas and writings of bell hooks. I envision her now, IN GLORY, on the ancestral plane wondering over the beloved community she helped to create and inspire.The words of bell hooks are intimate and universal at the same time.
hooks made clear that men’s pain, insecurities, fears, and inability to connect with others emotionally are all connected to men’s allegiance to patriarchy. She is sort of saying, “The call is coming from inside the house!” I kept reminding her, as she declined in these last years, and often felt alone and forgotten, that she was always present in the lives of women, especially Black women and girls who she taught to talk back; to see their commodification and reject it; to demand space in the center and the love they deserve.So often we think that to be radical is to be loud.