Voice of Equality in the Works of Toni Morrison and bell hooks
In the 223 years our country has been instituted, the way black people are perceived in society has always been less than acceptable. Great leaders and motivators like Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have come and gone, their voices and action have attempted to change the role of black people in society. However, even in today times, equality is still far off, and there is no voice comparable to what blacks relied on in those days. Instead of marches in Alabama, or speeches in Washington, the plight of the blacks are heard through literature. Small voices in literature that makes a big impact on society. Toni Morrison and bell hooks use words to motivate people of all color. Morrison and hooks open eyes to this so-called free country we live in with the purpose of showing society's condemnation of black life, interracial relationships and black woman in a traditionally men's roles. In the two stories by Toni Morrison titled, "On the Backs of Blacks" and "Friday on the Potomac," she strives to prove the effects of racism in America, the oppression of African Americans in society, and the racial and sexist aspects of the Anita Hall and Clarence Thomas Hearings. In "Sorrowful Black Death Is Not a Hot Ticket" and "Seduction And Betrayal" bell hooks criticizes the way black life is depicted the movies: Crooklyn, The Bodyguard, and The Crying Game.
Toni Morrison and bell hooks believe that mainstream society condemns black life as meaningless and unimportant. In Toni Morrison's "On The Back of Blacks", she describes the oppression the black community experiences from today's white society. She labels it ...
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...s in Washington, but they change attitudes and views just the same. Their literature is a realistic view displayed to the public for the purpose of change. Morrison and hooks succeeded in their goal.
Works Cited
hooks, b. Seduction and Betrayal. In B. Alvarado & B. Cully (Eds.), Writing As Re-vision: A Student's Anthology (pp. 108-111). Needham Heights, MA: Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing.
hooks, b. Black death is not a hot ticket. In B. Alvarado & B. Cully (Eds.) ,
Writing As Re-vision: A Student's Anthology (pp. 108-111). Needham Heights, MA: Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing
Morrison, T. (1993, August). On the backs of blacks. Time, 57.
Morrison, T. (1992). Race-ing justice, en-gendering power : essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the construction of social reality. NewYork, NY: Pantheon Books
Writing as a Re-Vision. Eds. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Needham Heights, MA: Simon & Schuster Custom Publishing, 1996.
This piece of autobiographical works is one of the greatest pieces of literature and will continue to inspire young and old black Americans to this day be cause of her hard and racially tense background is what produced an eloquent piece of work that feels at times more fiction than non fiction
In her novel called “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center” one of the many areas bell hooks speaks of is the perpetual racial confinement of oppressed black women. The term double-bind comes to mind when she says “being oppressed means the absence of choices” (hooks 5). The double-bind is “circumstances in which choices are condensed to a few and every choice leads to segregation, fault or denial” Therefore, this essay will discuss how hooks’ definition of oppression demonstrates the double-bind in race relations, forcing the socially underprivileged minority to “never win,” and as a result allowing the privileged dominate “norm” to not experience perpetual segregation.
By writing Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery Bell Hooks gave black women a chance to relate to one another on issues that we are often afraid to express. In PSC 318 we often discussed the stigma of being a “strong black woman” and the negative aspects of that stigma. In my eyes thee is nothing negative about being strong and there is surely nothing negative about being a black woman. But, as a black woman we are looked at providers, caregivers, mentors, mother figures, a shoulder to lean on and much more. Bell Hooks touches on the touchy subject in the black community and that is mental health. Often times as black people we worry about physical health and spiritual health, in the black community our answer to everything and anything going wrong in our lives is to pray about it. Yes, God can heal and help us but Bell Hooks tells us in writing Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery that we need to take care of our mental health as well as pray. Black women rarely go to therapist to talk about their problems because they are so worried about helping everyone else handle their problems.
The plight of the civil rights movement stands as one of the most influential and crucial elements to African-American history. We can accredit many activist, public speakers, and civil rights groups, to the equality and civil rights that African-American men and women are able to have in this country today. We see repeated evidence of these historical movements describes in fiction, plays, TV, and many other forms of media and literature. An artistic license is provided to many authors developing these concepts amongst their writing. When examining specific characters and literary works you can see an indirect comparison to the personality traits, actions, decisions, and journey to that of real-life historical figures.
Today, blacks are respected very differently in society than they used to be. In “The Help”, we see a shift in focus between what life is like now for the average African American compared to what it was like for them to live in the 1960’s.“The Help” teaches readers the importance of understanding and learning from our history. The novel is a snapshot of the cultural, racial and economic distinctions between blacks and whites in a particularly tumultuous time in American history. “The Help” encourages readers to examine personal prejudices and to strive to foster global equality.
In 1983, Toni Morrison published the only short story she would ever create. The controversial story conveys an important idea of what race is and if it really matter in the scheme of life. This story takes place during the time period of the Civil Rights Movement. The idea of civil rights was encouraged by the government but not enforced by the states, leaving many black Americans suffering every day. In Morrison’s short story Recitatif, Morrison manipulates the story’s diction to describe the two women’s races interchangeably resulting in the confusion of the reader. Because Morrison never establishes the “black character” or the “white character”, the reader is left guessing the race of the two main characters throughout the whole story. Morrison also uses the character’s actions and dialogue during the friend’s meetings to prove the theme of equality between races.
bell hooks closes her essay by saying, “If black men are betraying us through acts of male violence, we save ourselves and the race by resisting.” (123) I believe in what she is saying, but she is one sided. Maybe she is just saying that we, as women, would rather be called just ‘girls’, ‘women’ or even ‘chicka’, but that is every woman, not just the black women. But, did she even think about the girls (black and white) that like to be paraded around like giraffes at a circus? Did she realize that she is just one person, as am I, and she can’t change the world she lived in? The world is cruel and evil and some of the men in it are just as nasty and immoral, but it’s our choice whether to live in the world…or in the circus.
Eastland, Terry. Ending Affirmative Action: The Case for Colorblind Justice. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Atticus is always guiding Jem and Scout with advice so that they will become more compassionate people. Atticus sets a good example for the children when Mr Ewell confronts him. Even though he is provoked and insulted, Atticus simply has a “peaceful reaction”. This shows the children never to get into fights with people when they are upset about something. Atticus shows children about courage and all the forms it appears in. When Jem is told to read for Ms Dubose and she dies, Atticus explains to Jem about her morphine addiction, and how she died “free”. This shows Jem that courage isn’t always where you expect to find it, and that if you have some compassion, you see people for who they really are. The most important piece of advice he gives his children is that “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” This is important for the children to know, because it helps them to be more caring people, and they use this advice throughout the novel.
Meyer, Michael, ed. Thinking and Writing About Literature. Second Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001.
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.
... It should be understood that Morrison's novel is filled with many characters and many examples of racism and sexism and the foundations for such beliefs in the black community. Every character is the victim or aggressor of racism or sexism in all its forms. Morrison succeeds in shedding light on the racism and sexism the black community had to endure on top of racism and sexism outside of the community. She shows that racism and sexism affect everyone's preconceived notions regarding race and gender and how powerful and prevalent the notions are.
In the book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center written by bell hooks, an African-American author, social activist and feminist first published in 1984 the author explains what she believes are the core principles of feminism. Throughout the book the author examines the early feminist theory and goes on to criticize it saying that it did not aim for a systematic change also that the movement has the potential to improve the lives of both men and women immensely. In the book the author investigates the performance of African-American women in the movement and what is needed to drive the movement towards ending oppression of all kinds.
Lerych, Lynne, and Allison DeBoer. The Little Black Book of College Writing. Boston, New York: