bell hooks Pt 2 cultural criticism and transformation

Right on. Social and political consciousness are difficult to achieve for oppressed people because they are living under a system that reinforces their supposed infereiority through subjugation that it declares normal, natural and necessary. Fighting back is not at all easy because one would first have to consciously resist the idea that one is what the culture says one is - and how easy is it to do this when you are ubiquitously represented as inferior by both the system and others like you?

I never realized that Darth Vader's voice was James Earl Jones, or that it was a black man's voice, until she pointed it out--sorry. Otherwise, she's right on, but I think "identity" is everyone's problem, no matter what race, ethnicity, nationality, etc. Soccer fans of the same race, etc., killing each other because they identify with a team is an example. Everyone needs to examine the sources of their identity and realize there's a whole world of values to choose from. Create your own.

I see the validity in this, but I think it's also important to acknowledge that the creation of a self-identity will inevitably occur within the matrix of domination and repression that Bell Hooks calls white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Examining the sources of identity and picking from a grab bag of values is not as open a process as some might imagine, because these processes do not occur within a vacuum - they occur within a very specific context that is based on hierarchical systems.

What I admire most about Bell Hooks is her ability to explain very complex theoretical ideas in clear terms so as to make her thoughts on crucial issues accessible to others. She is a true scholar - unassuming and unpretentious, unwavering in her analysis of American society. Her pioneering analysis of the cultural representations of minorities really sheds light on both the deliberate nature of many visual representations of people of color and how strongly the media influences us.

She is truly gifted, and her gift to us is huge.

I totally agree, but given that everything we think and do occurs within the context of all that has gone before, the closest we can come to an independent identity is to study this matrix of domination and repression, these hierarchical systems, and try to understand their influences on what we think of ourselves. Bell Hooks offers us a wonderful insight into these systems, and I'm grateful for that. How can we free ourselves except to begin by understanding that which has enslaved us?

Further--if the internet is supposed to transcend information to blacks--it does not-- most blacks do not have a computer, or operate it. Sadly, this is why blacks are left out of the technocratic age while crying for more Jordans. So, I hope you understand that as these scholars do not enter most black communities--they will not here. Bell Hooks has allowed the same demons she speak of to destroy her health and natural essences. Did you see the pictures of her kissing white women!

when you say "most blacks" do you mean more then 50% of african americans or do mean genrally all people's of african descent, becouse if its the first then please could you provide same emprical or statical evidence; is just a little irritating to block a diverise and global communties and blur socio-economic lines under a common and samewhat confusing phrase like "blacks".

Another thing is the word whore game black scholars and so-call intellectuals play with the public- most blacks do not know who these people are nevertheless-what is "macrostructures" and "patriarchy"--as you state below. Blacks must start to look beyond the black community for valuable and holistic ways of living and rebuilding our selves--other ethnic groups have suffered under supremacy- and are now a power structure. Supremacy and its institutions reaches beyond whiteness--

If we do not have the in-tack communities after supporting the positions of so-called scholars such as Bell Hooks and others--then the scholars are just as responsible for a community wasting away. I am not a black pacifist--nor a lesbian or feminist who has assist whites in the destruction of the black family. Moyniham report revisited--first degraded now prolific--as black scholars report. Blacks want an appeasement for behaviors that have more to do with morality than white supremacy.