Gloria
Jean Watkins, also known by her pen name Bell Hooks, is a social activist,
feminist, professor, and author. She borrowed her pen name from her maternal
great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks, because she was an individual that was
never afraid to speak out and the result was that she was greatly admired.
Hooks was born in 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky to working class parents.[1]
Hopkinsville was a segregated town and from the beginning of her life, Hooks
had to go to public schools which were also segregated. Furthermore, as an avid
reader in an environment of segregation, she ended up writing concerning the
considerable adversities that she had to endure especially when she had to make
a transition to an integrated school, where the majority of students and
teachers were white; a scenario that was quite new to her. However, following
her education, she began her career in 1976 at the University of Southern
California where she was an English professor and senior lecturer in Ethnic
Studies.[2]
It was during her three years at this institution that she ended up having her
first published work, And There We Wept
in 1978.[3]
The major focus of her writings has been on capitalism, gender, and race and
the manner through which these have been prominent in the perpetuation of class
domination and oppression in society. She is an individual that has not only
published numerous books, but also participated in public lectures as well as
documentary films. Thus, Hooks is therefore an individual that, through her
works, has been able to undertake the task of addressing such issues as
sexuality, mass media, history, art, and feminism.
One
of Bell Hooks’ most notable works is Touching
the Earth, which makes an attempt to show the way that the African American
people are connected to the earth. She promotes the idea that African Americans
should undertake to ensure that they reclaim the spiritual legacy in such a way
that they end up connecting their personal wellbeing to that of the earth.[4]
Furthermore, she suggests that it is necessary for African Americans to
recognize that the fight to save the environment and the fight against racism are
actually competing concerns, especially when one considers that the agrarian
South has a direct connection with racism. The importance of this factor cannot
be underestimated because it shows the manner through which the African
American singular focus on bringing an end to racism has created a situation
where they are completely divorced from nature.[5]
Hooks further considers the way that their living close to nature has a
beneficial effect on African Americans because they were able to attain a
spirit of wonder that advocated for a reverence of life. However, because of
their desire to escape the racial injustice that was prevalent in the South,
they moved to the cities of the North, which resulted in the loss of connection
with the agrarian South. In this way, rather than being connected to nature,
they missed the entire connection to such an extent that they were forced to
become what they were not. The sensual beauty of the South was gone, replaced
by the divorce from community that is a constant feature of life in cities.[6]
Thus, Hooks makes the connection between nature and race and considers the
human divorce from nature to be the cause of racism.
In
the essays Indian Wisdom by Luther
Sanding Bear and Bell Hooks’ Touching the
Earth, there are two sections in the former and one in the latter. These
sections address the various concerns that the authors seek to bring to public
notice. The first section in Indian
Wisdom is one that seeks to address the matter of nature and the manner through
which it was one of the mainstays of Native American society because of the
close connection that they had to nature.[7]
The second section makes an analysis of Native American religion and the way
that it was an essential aspect of their lives based on not only their close
connection to nature, but also the way that they did not fear nature. The
section in Touching the Earth, on the
other hand, addresses the connection between black people and the land and the
way that because of this connection, they essentially lost their humanity when
the moved away from the rural South to the urban North.
A
number of shared themes are found in both Indian
Wisdom and Touching the Earth.
One of the most significant of these is the connection between humans and
nature. This connection is seen in page 202 by the way that Standing Bear
addresses the way that the Native Americans, specifically the Lakota, were very
connected to nature to the extent of their being referred to as naturalists.[8]
In page 363, Hooks also addresses the connection to nature, stating that by
loving the earth, humans are able to love themselves. Another theme that is
brought to the fore is that of the attempt to tame nature.[9]
This is seen through the way that Standing Bear in page 205 shows the attempts
by the white man to tame nature, and Hooks’ in page 365 who addresses the way
that African Americans migrated from the rural South to the industrialized
North.[10]
Also, the theme of racism comes to the fore, as seen through the way that
Native Americans are viewed as savages in page 205 of Indian Wisdom and the matter of racial harassment that black people
encountered in the South as seen in page 366 of Hooks’ Touching the Earth.[11]
The theme of spirituality and religion is also pertinent in Indian Wisdom page 206 and Touching the Earth page 365, which are
addressed through the concern about the connection between spirituality and
nature. Conservation is another theme that is common in both essays, and they
each address the manner through which nature should be allowed to remain as it
is for the welfare of all individuals. Finally, the theme of fear is also
prominent, as seen through the way that Standing Bear, in page 205, seeks to
promote the idea that white people are afraid of nature and this is the reason
why the seek to tame it, and the fear of being out of place due to alienation
of nature in page 365 of Hooks’ Touching
the Earth.[12]
[1] "Bell Hooks Biography," Encyclopedia of World Biographies,
https://www.notablebiographies.com/He-Ho/Hooks-Bell.html.
[2] Gary L Anderson and Kathryn G Herr, Encyclopedia
of Activism and Social Justice (Sage Publications, 2007), 706.
[3] "Bell Hooks Speaks Up," The Sandspur,
https://issuu.com/thesandspur/docs/112-17.
[4] Bell Hooks, "Touching the Earth," At Home on the Earth: Becoming
(2010): 364.
[5] Mayumi Toyosato, "Living in Place as African American Tradition:
Inhabitory Consciousness in Her Own Place," (2004): 28.
[6] Peter HH Kahn Jr and Batya Friedman, "On Nature and Environmental
Education: Black Parents Speak from the Inner City," Environmental Education Research 4, no. 1 (1998): 36.
[7] Chief Luther Standing Bear, "Indian Wisdom (1933)," The Great New Wilderness Debate (1998): 202.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Hooks, 363.
[10] Ibid., 365; Bear, 205.
[11] 205; Hooks, 366.
[12] 365; Bear, 205.
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