Talking Back - thinking feminist , thinking black

bell hooks

South End Press

1989

185 páginas

6h 10m

ISBN-10: 0896083535

Writing is a healing act of power for this woman who grew up in an "old school" Southern black world where children were meant to be seen and not heard. "Talking back" was punished with silence.
But in a world of woman-talk, where the everyday rules of how to live and how to act were established, hooks made language her birthright. When it comes to bigotry, there is no mincing words: bell hooks talks back.

Resenhas (1)

5 (Perfeito)

What a book! Like “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, which comes with a DON’T PANIC sticker, this one should come with a READY TO BE CHALLENGED? one. Personally, I love hooks’ unapologetic tone and how she constantly marks who she talks to, where she speaks from and how much the black (and the black female) community still must change. The fact that she demands change, but sees herself as a force of change as well shows me a great sense of community and a willingness to learn.

Learning is a major topic in this book and all the quotes by Paulo Freire in it were absolutely worth rereading from a feminist perspective. I was particularly delighted to be reminded of the role love plays in revolution for Freire and how hooks links it to the notion that in order to struggle for a change that will benefit community, there must be more than political ideology bonding us together.

“Talking back” is also a book about writing, which I appreciate. hooks talks about writing, rewriting, teaching Creative Writing courses, editing her own material and letting her books be liberating tokens of her work towards consciousness. As a professor, hooks seems to be very concerned with promoting an environment in which people are able to shift paradigms, be challenged, and ultimately, change. Her telling her story, how academy played its role in it and how difficult it was for her to earn her teaching spot at Yale also amazed me. There is something really special about people who are insistent, particularly with a radical agenda. I wouldn’t be able to put into a few paragraphs how much this book meant to me.

Maybe an interesting way to conclude would be this very challenge hooks poses: “I believe that women should think less in terms of feminism as an identity and more in terms of ‘advocating feminism’; to move from emphasis on personal lifestyle issues toward creating political paradigms and radical models of social change that emphasizes collective as well as individual change”.