Bone Black by Bell Hooks

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Bone Black

In the book Bone Black, Bell Hooks gives a vivid look into her childhood. She starts off by talking about a quilt that her mother gave her from her mother. She thinks that this is special because her mother gave it to her and not one of her other sisters. Then she goes into describing how the children in her family never knew that they were poor until they grew up. They liked the dolls that they played with and the food that they ate. They never wondered why they didn’t have the things that their white neighbors did have. You would seldomly hear them complain because they had to walk to school and the white kids rode the school bus. She thought that they had a pretty normal family.

In the next few chapters she discusses how they were brought up to fear white people. The children in her family were always told that black people who resembled white people would live better in the world. Through her childhood she would learn that some of the benefits or being light in skin would be given to her.

As Bell goes through her young life she learns to play the piano, that death was not something to be afraid of, and she eventually learned how to use a camera. Granted that everyone back then did not have cameras or picture boxes as they called them, so this was a big deal. The most influential person in her life was her grandmother. She loved going to her house when she was making wine, soap or butter. The children would always have the job of...

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