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killing rage: Ending Racism

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Bell Hooks covers all bases with the most pertinent issues that involve racism. KILLING RAGE: ENDING RACISM is an interesting critical assessment that does not only involve African Americans, but all Americans who want to understand why racism still exists. Three major issues in the book remain in my mind and were constantly repeated in most of the chapters: self-determination, White Supremacy, and decolonization. These issues, according to Hooks, are the root and the action for resolve in understanding the racism in the United States. For a long time, the "R" word has been an invisible subject, that never comes to a resolve when it is discussed -- a neverending circle. Hooks suggests that there is a sense of denial or amnesia.

Hooks makes a good point when she discusses the issue of race as it pertains whether or not black and white women can be friends. She concludes: "If white and black women were collectively working to change society so that we could know one another better and be able to offer acknowledgment and respect, then we would be playing a major role in ending racism. As long as white and black women are content with living separately in a state of psychic social apartheid, racism will not change"(224). She goes on about patriarchy and sexism, which tend to be the where incohesiveness exists. However, white and black women relations have more in common in ending the gap by building a bridge toward activism.

For the most part, when it all comes down to it, everything that Hooks discusses leads to "let's face" the problem of racism. She states that it is possible, and it all depends on the individual, and building a community that educates and talks about learning about racism and how to deter it. KILLING RAGE is one of many books that critically analyzes racism, and Hooks' criticism was extremely understandable and directly to the point.

However, the book may have been more effective if she provided the voices, such as oral testimonies, of the people that have helped to deter the problem. The majority of the sources she used were predominantly secondary sources from previous scholarship. She makes assumptions, which contribute to a little gray areas in the book, such as when she briefly refers to non-blacks and how they may fit into the equation -- Native Americans and Asians. But overall, this is an important subject that needs attention as long as the problem exists.

I'm sort of a bell hooks fan. I've always liked her keen intelligence, lucid writing, and her ability to name oppressive forces that impact us all.

Many people will not like hooks because she doesn't write from an activist experience. She's primarily a cultural critic, providing insight and analysis rather than strategy and tactics. Her lack of political activism is indeed problematic, but as an activist teacher, I turn to hooks for inspiration and vision for how to engage my students and other folks in the educational community in visions of radical change.

In "Killing Rage," hooks comes on very strong in naming racism as a White, patriarcial, capitalist enterprise. In providing this analysis, hooks is examining instutions of both covert and institutionalized racism, the latter of which is harder to name and explain.

In this work, bell argues that the ending of racism must come through a "collecitve black rage." which means that "Progressive black activists must show how we take that rage and move it beyond fruitless scapegoating of any group, linking it instead to a passion for freedom and justice that illuminates, heals, and makes redemptive struggle possible." In other words, bell is spreaking of what took place in the Black power movement in which collective black rage rose up against racist aparthied in America. But she's not advocating that we build on the Black Power struggles of the sixities. Collective Black rage must include solidarity with Black feminist struggle and solidarity with class struggle along all racial lines.

While hooks does not seek to exclude White allies in the struggle to end racism, "Killing Rage" seems largely targeted to African people. She's calling for African people redefine Black identity, "one that is not sexist, homophobic, patriarchal, or supportive of capitalism."

Lastly, I want to point out how hooks argues that this struggle to end racism must be tied an edcuational agenda. She writes: "Until all black people address the educational crisis in black life, we cannot hope to attain collective self-detremination. As long as progressive radical black folks ignore secondary edcuation and fail to take the initiative to call for and demand progressive anti-racist, anti-sexist education for black children, and all children, our communities will be deluged by folks who see bourgeois partirarchal pedagogy as the only hope." For me, this says it all. I strongly encourage freedom-loving people to read this book.

This was my first bell hooks book and, while I wouldn't say I am anywhere near as militant as she is, it gave voice to so many concerns I'd had over the years but didn't have the words or insight to explain. What a magnificent work.

This book gives a nuanced observation to the white supremacist structure of our society in America and how this structure is continually reinforced through the socialization and mentality of all races. hooks speaks of the tool of the media depicting the portrayal of People of Color (especially the double minorities: Women of color). The systematic procedures of the judicial system and law enforcement that inevitably predicts and breeds the dynamics of societies where blacks are the eyesores of society. Then she addresses the internal problems of the Black community in relation to the color-caste system and the capitalistic and patriarchal view African-Americans oppress themselves with. She includes her experiences in relation to how she interacted with Whites who were unaware of their supremacist behavior and Blacks who were assimilated and exhibited this same elitist attitude. This is an excellent book on bringing us together as a people to help end this oppressive structure to society and the responsiblity all races have to reaching this goal. Until then, America is a racial melting pot where there is only one chef in the kitchen.

This book is priceless! It's one of those books that made me go, "She sees it too! I've always noticed that but I always thought I was the only one that thought about it this way!"

hooks says what millions of African Americans have been made to feel guilty for thinking...we are angry, and it's justified! hooks dismantles and analyzes the mechanics of racism in this country with a boldness and precision that can only be envied by the so-called political and social leaders of the Black community today. The way that she approaches such taboo topics as sexism and color discrimination within the African American community is excellent. I am so glad to now feel that I am not the only black woman to be bothered by and concerned with these issues.

hooks not only gives insight into and clear explanations of such problems but also offers positive solutions. I was especially impressed with her demand that Blacks begin to pay attention the psychological damage caused by racism and that our mental health professionals begin considering our special history in this country when creating their theories.

hooks basically calls for Blacks to stop denying the pain, anger and resentment that is logically caused by our past and present position in this country, to stop adopting ideals that don't suit or benefit our people, and to stop internalizing but start being honest about the rage so that we may actually move forward and not just keep going through the motions while still psychologically destructive. She also calls for Whites to stop denying the role that they play in our self-destruction while advising Blacks to resist a victim mentality.

hooks does not hate Whites; she rightfully makes them accountable for their actions, but then also invites them to play their part in reshaping society. It's just an honest book that approaches a lot of topics that many people, Black and White, are usually afraid to touch.

hooks blows the cover off of racist mechanisms that the rest of us have been busy trying to pretend don't exist. Especially those that adversely affect Black women. This is an eye-opener and will definitely lead to some great discussions. Get it and read every chapter!

The book was an eye opener for many who is under the illusion that racism and prejudice in America was a problem of the past and only found now in issolated pockets of America. The book makes us aware of how racism exists in mainstream America that many of us are not always aware of. I did find her critism of black culture, and how it is losing it's identy with black culture of the past to be a bit narrow focused. All nationalities loses it's identity to it's country of origin by the second or third generation. African-Americans are discarding their ethnic roots in the same fashion as any other nationality or culture, and Ms. Hook's critism of today's blacks being unfaithful of their history is just as narrow minded and limiting of what it means to be black as the white society she justifiablly critiques.

As a student of sociology and contemporary critical literature, I find this book to be of indescribable significance. As White Americans, what we often miss is that the issues of race and class inequality are just as present today as they were before the Civil-Rights movements. What this movement did is bring these problems to the attention of mainstream, White America-yet it did not solve it in any way. In these essays, Bell Hooks does an especially nice job of making it apparent that all White America has done about the issues of race and class is "slip it under the rug." Some readers have found her writings to be evidence of ranting and raving or the victimization of Black Americans. It has been said that she hates Whites. Yet these comments are evidence that White America desperately needs to face its prejudiced views-and Bell Hooks shows provides us with a wonderful opportunity to do so. A must read!

This will challenge every thought and idea you have ever had on race, racism and rage. I do not agree with everything hooks has to say, but her literary power kept me reading. This book is required reading in my classroom!

Leaving aside the fact that the spelling-your-name-with-lower-case-only affectation was tired and old 6 decades ago, let it be said that BELL HOOKS is a pampered uber-bourgie prima donna nutcase. Consider the anecdotal source of HOOK's titular "killing rage": she and a friend are on an airliner, sitting in the first class section, of course. (What radical superstar ever flew coach? Gotta maximize those contradictions, after all. Plus the leg room is so much better....). Anyway, it transpires that HOOK's traveling companion does not have legitimate title to her first class seat. Another passenger carrying a bona fide ticket for that seat appears and asks for it. HOOK's companion is requested to relocate to coach. Apologies are offered and spurned. Tellingly, Princess BELL does not opt to join her friend in coach. What more do you need to know about a person than that? Instead, she stays up in first class and harangues the poor soul whose misfortune it was to end up sitting next to BELL HOOKS. Because, wouldn't you know it, the passenger in question is a WHITE MALE. Golly gee, the galling bitter injustice of it drives BELL HOOKS into a KILLING RAGE, and she bravely lets the whole plane know it. In time, Mr White Male gets tired of defending his right to oxygen, and begs BELL HOOKS to please get out of his face. Whereupon BELL HOOKS --she will not be silenced!-- gets out a pad of paper and a pen and begins taking notes for another incisive diagnostic essay on our incorrigibly racist American society. On top of the first page, she angrily writes in block capitals, "KILLING RAGE," just in case Mr. White Male has yet to get the message. The bottom line: BELL HOOKS is a narcissistic loon. She should buy herself a Lear Jet.

This book packs one hell of a wallop. Ms HOOKS first essay titled Killing Rage put my teeth on edge, for I have had a similar experience, only because I can pass for white it didn't happen until my Black father appeared at my side, need I say more? However what is brilliant about this particular book is that it does not lower itself to bash white people and point out their zillion faults, I know there will be some who disagree with me, but reading each essay I got the sense of someone who has an uncute understanding of racism, its roots past and present and why sometimes so many people of colour are defeated by a system of institutional racism that is at times so covert we are accused of lying about it!

Bell HOOKS book pulls no punches, but it is a candid discourse that is well argued, well written but most all incredibly easy to read and understand.

This is a book that if you can't get your hands on a copy, go out and beg, borrow or steal, it is that good and that hard hitting.

You go Ms HOOKS!