{"id":12862,"date":"2021-12-16T01:09:33","date_gmt":"2021-12-16T09:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=12862"},"modified":"2021-12-18T04:12:29","modified_gmt":"2021-12-18T12:12:29","slug":"the-legacy-of-bell-hooks-trailblazing-scholar-and-activist-lives-through-her-students-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=12862","title":{"rendered":"“The legacy of bell hooks \u2014 trailblazing scholar and activist \u2014 lives through her students”, The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Mar\u00eda Luisa Pa\u00fal, December 16, 2021<\/p>\n

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When bell hooks\u2019s death was announced Wednesday<\/a>, Javier Morillo\u2019s mind traveled back over three decades to the unseasonably chilly day in New Haven, Conn., when he first set foot on Yale University\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n

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The renowned author, social critic and scholar bell hooks. (Margaret Thomas\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It was 1987 and an 18-year-old Morillo had traded his native Puerto Rico\u2019s sunny beaches for a stint at an elite institution. Standing at the foot of Yale\u2019s imposing architecture and feeling like an outsider, an overwhelming sense of dread washed over him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cA voice kept telling me, \u2018You just made the worst mistake of your life,\u2019 \u201d Morillo, now 52, said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said he was ready to call it quits, until Gloria \u2014 as students referred to hooks, the renowned author, social critic and scholar \u2014 delivered an <\/b>orientation address.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe feeling that I remember having from that lecture was a sense of belonging that I can be a thinking person, an educated person and still be true to my values, my roots,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that those were things that were of benefit, not a subtraction.\u201d<\/p>\n

After orientation, Morillo enrolled in the \u201cRomance, Self and Society\u201d seminar taught by hooks. Years later, as a college professor in Minnesota, he used her method on his own students, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s special to think that we were so touched by her that we pass down the lessons she taught,\u201d he said. \u201cAs much as her writing, that profound impact she had on her students is an important part of her legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ripples of hooks\u2019s sway showcase themselves in myriad ways. For some it was a change of heart, for others a change of career. Even among those who never met her, hooks instilled an ideal for what teaching could become \u2014 breaking down barriers as an act of love.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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With over 30 books under a repertoire that mixes the personal and the political, hooks\u2019s readers range from scholars to \u201cjust an ordinary person reading in the subway,\u201d Morillo said. Her books are taught in colleges, including \u201cAin\u2019t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism,\u201d lauded as a groundbreaking work in feminist history. Her flowing and forthright style encourages readers to think more critically about race, sexuality, community, love and feminism. But more than a prolific writer, her former students remember the gentle-spoken woman who inspired them to think deeply, love immensely and aspire greatly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Why bell hooks didn\u2019t capitalize her name<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For Min Jin Lee \u2014 author of \u201cPachinko,\u201d a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction \u2014 having hooks as a professor shattered a slew of preconceived notions. As a Korean American woman and history major, Lee said she never envisioned herself following her teacher\u2019s path. Her English courses at Yale \u201cjust completely opened my mind,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cTwo classes of the few number of electives that I had really reflect how important I thought she was as a teacher,\u201d Lee said. \u201cStudying with her made such a huge impact on me in terms of thinking about how people become writers, why they write books and what it means to be a woman of color and to write.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In more ways than one, Lee said, hooks embodied the central canons in her writing: like the colored pieces of a mosaic, the self contains a vast and sometimes juxtaposing array of experiences and interests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Conversations could range from the commodification of Black bodies to the beauty behind a color event. A fashion lover, hooks could as readily engage in an intellectual debate as she could say \u201cOh, those shoes are so cute,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cJust to think of her in narrow terms is not fair to the bigness of her mind,\u201d the author said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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hooks\u2019s time as a professor in Yale ended in 1988. That same year, she moved some 561 miles away to Ohio, where she took up a teaching position at Oberlin College until 1994. After almost a decade \u2014 and a professorship at City College of New York \u2014 she returned to Oberlin in 2002 for an event, where her humor, larger-than-life laugh and attentive listening would resonate with then-freshman Mary Anna\u00efse Heglar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cShe was a lot funnier and sillier in person,\u201d said Heglar, who is now a podcast host and climate writer. \u201cBut, in the way of James Baldwin, she was very interested in what we thought then and liked engaging with people in that way as opposed to talking at them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Javier Morillo, one of hooks’s students later used her own method on his own students. (Margaret Thomas\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In 2004, hooks moved back to her native Kentucky to take up a teaching position at Berea College. Her return, said Ben Boggs, a former colleague in that institution, was much more than a homecoming. Rather, the promise of what the country could be was entrenched in the full-circle moment: a woman who was raised in the segregated South teaching in the abolitionist-founded liberal arts school.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe motto remains \u2018From the Gospels that God has made of one blood all peoples of the Earth,\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cAnd bell was just that. That was just part of who she was, so it was just a very natural fit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A decade later the college created the bell hooks Institute as a center for her writing and teaching. At Berea, Boggs said, hooks asked provocative questions to anyone who crossed her path. But she also once surprised her students by quietly flying an actress to the Appalachian town during the height of her Harry Potter fame.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cShe somehow convinced Emma Watson to fly to Lexington, Kentucky, and then drove her down to Berea, where they met at bell\u2019s house with students without the media ever knowing,\u201d Boggs said. \u201cThat meant so much to the students.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But her influence went beyond those who knew her personally. Her thoughts on teaching became a template for those wanting to act on one of the cornerstones in \u201cTeaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom,\u201d her 1994 education-focused book: That \u201cthe classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Robert Wood, 6, watches as bell hooks signs a book in Hyattsville, Md. (Melanie Burford for The Washington Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A molecular biologist, Raven Baxter ran across this book when she made the jump toward pedagogy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI learned about the importance of using my platform as an educator to be vulnerable and break the traditional norms of elitism that are in science,\u201d Baxter said. \u201cBy linking our personal stories, by being vulnerable and weaving those in with academic discussions, it really shows our humanity and also helps people understand how our personal narratives are integrated into the things that we learn in our academic material.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Inspired by hooks\u2019s \u201cdemocratizing approach\u201d at shattering the ivory tower of academia, Baxter said she has worked in different ways to break the barriers of science\u2019s complexity \u2014 employing rap music to explain knotty subjects like the body\u2019s immune response<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cShe left such a huge legacy,\u201d Baxter said. \u201cIt would be a disservice if we didn\u2019t actually carry it on and do everything that we possibly could to continue sharing her teachings and following the practices.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Whether it is by revisiting her work, smiling at shared moments or reflecting on her ideas, the impact hooks left builds from one of her best-known phrases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cLove is an action, never simply a feeling,\u201d she wrote in her 1999 book, \u201cAll About Love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mar\u00eda Luisa Pa\u00fal, December 16, 2021 When bell hooks\u2019s death was announced Wednesday, Javier Morillo\u2019s mind traveled back over three decades to the unseasonably chilly day in New Haven, Conn., when he first set foot on Yale University\u2019s campus. The renowned author, social critic and scholar bell hooks. (Margaret Thomas\/The Washington Post) It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12866,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862\/revisions\/12866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}