Home / Quotes / Quote by Bell Hooks

Quote by Bell Hooks

“We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.”

Quote by Bell Hooks

Author

Bell Hooks, born Gloria Jean Watkins, is an American author, scholar, and activist. Her work primarily focuses on issues of race, gender, and social justice, particularly on feminist and black feminist thought. Hooks' works include novels, poetry, academic writings, and autobiographies, and her writing style is beloved by readers for its profound social insight and desire for change. more

You May Also Like

“Like desire, language disrupts, refuses to be contained within boundaries.”

Desire Language Sex Refuse Boundaries

Book:Teaching To Transgress

Source: Teaching To Transgress

“It was the world of Southern, rural, black growing up, of folks sitting on porches day and night, of folks calling your mama, 'cause you walked by and didn't speak, and of the switch waiting when you got home so that you could be taught some manners. It was a world of single black older women schoolteachers, dedicated, tough; they had taught your mama, her sisters, and her friends. They knew your people in ways that you never would and shared their insight, keeping us in touch with generations. It was a world where we had a history.”

“It's interesting--the way in which one has to balance life--because you have to know when to let go and when to pull back.... There's always some liminal (as opposed to subliminal) space in between which is harder to inhabit because it never feels as safe as moving from one extreme to another.”

Knows Way Life Feels Moving Space Interesting Security Balance Safe Letting Go Harder Extremes Subliminal

Author:Bell Hooks

“If we are ever to construct a feminist movement that is not based on the premise that men and women are always at war with one another, then we must be willing to acknowledge the appropriateness of complex critical responses to writing by men even if it is sexist. Clearly women can learn from writers whose work is sexist, even be inspired by it, because sexism may be simply one dimension of that work. Concurrently fiercely critiquing the sexism does not mean that one does not value the work.”

Source: Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics

“... feminist solidarity rooted in a commitment to progressive politics must include a space for rigorous critique, for dissent, orwe are doomed to reproduce in progressive communities the very forms of domination we seek to oppose.”

Form Politics Community Space Commitment Feminist Oppression Progressive Rooted Solidarity Doomed Domination Dissent Critique

Book:Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations

Source: Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations

“The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.”

“The notion that black folks have nothing to learn from scholarship that may reflect racial or racist biases is dangerous. It promotes closed-mindedness and a narrow understanding of knowledge to hold that "race" is such an overwhelming concept that it negates the validity of any insights contained in a work that may have some racist or sexist aspects.”

May Understanding Black Race Dangerous Racism Concepts Aspect Notion Folks Insight African American Racist Overwhelming Scholarship Validity Sexist

Author:Bell Hooks

“Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves "oppressed," no one would have taken them seriously.”

Black Class Taken Middle Movement Oppression African American Middle Class Oppressed Black Women African American Women

Book:Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

Source: Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

“Today masses of black women in the U.S. refuse to acknowledge that they have much to gain by feminist struggle. They fear feminism. They have stood in place so long that they are afraid to move. They fear change. They fear losing what little they have.”

Littles Long Today Moving Black Struggle Feminism Mass Losing Gains Feminist Refuse African American Acknowledge Black Women Social Change African American Women

Author:Bell Hooks

“Yearning is the word that best describes a common psychological state shared by many of us, cutting across boundaries of race, class, gender, and sexual practice.”

States Common Race Class Practice Psychology Cutting Gender Boundaries Psychological Yearning

Book:Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics

Source: Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics