Hooks and Racism

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer discusses that the scholar Bell Hooks' 'Killing Rage: Ending Racism' begins with the shocking defense of a severely psychologically disturbed black man who unleashed a killing spree on the New York subway. The writer notes that while by no means defending murder, Hooks engages in a kind of tacit endorsement of the man's motivation, or his sophisticated understanding that both blacks and whites can perpetuate institutionalized racism, by supporting institutions that foster racist attitudes. The writer points out that America is a nation founded upon a racial divide between blacks and whites, founded upon the economic, political, and social legacy of slavery. The writer discusses that the notion of institutionalized, rather than personalized racism demarcated by Hooks stresses that although the effects of institutionalized racism may disproportionately affect blacks, both black and white 'bodies' can and do enforce the prejudices and stereotypes.

From the Paper:

" Hooks' criticism seems apt in the sense that 'whiteness' as a construct, much like 'heterosexuality' and 'maleness' has only recently been problematized within contemporary academic discourse. But Hooks' use of the term as the opposite of blackness, in reference to individuals is itself problematic. What about racial categories of white people who only 'recently' became white, such as people of Irish, Italian, or Mediterranean extraction? Or Jewish people and members of other minorities that have not been able, historically, to fully participate in American culture because they are not seen as 'white.' Do they all see blackness in the same fashion because they are locked in the same ideological system, or do they exist within their own subculture as well as participate in the dominant discourse of black/white racialization?"

Sample of Sources Used:

• Hooks, Bell. Killing Rage: Ending Racism. NY: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, 1996.
• Omi, Michael Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. NY: Routledge, 2994.

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