Read Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (Routledge Classics) Online
Authors: Bell Hooks
Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (Routledge Classics) (35 page)
A love ethic emphasizes the importance of service to others. Within the value system of the United States any task or job that is related to “service” is devalued. Service strengthens our capacity to know compassion and deepens our insight. To serve another I cannot see them as an object, I must see their subject-hood. Sharing the teaching of Shambala warriors, Buddhist Joanna Macy writes that we need weapons of compassion and insight.
You have to have compassion because it gives you the juice, the power, the passion to move. When you open to the pain of the world you move, you act. But that weapon is not enough. It can burn you out, so you need the other—you need insight into the
radical interdependence of all phenomena. With that wisdom you know that it is not a battle between good guys and bad guys, but that the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. With insight into our profound interrelatedness, you know that actions undertaken with pure intent have repercussions throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern.
Macy shares that compassion and insight can “sustain us as agents of wholesome change” for they are “gifts for us to claim now in the healing of our world.” In part, we learn to love by giving service. This is again a dimension of what Peck means when he speaks of extending ourselves for another.
The civil rights movement had the power to transform society because the individuals who struggle alone and in community for freedom and justice wanted these gifts to be for all, not just the suffering and the oppressed. Visionary black leaders such as Septima Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Howard Thurman warned again isolationism. They encouraged black people to look beyond our own circumstances and assume responsibility for the planet. This call for communion with a world beyond the self, the tribe, the race, the nation, was a constant invitation for personal expansion and growth. When masses of black folks starting thinking solely in terms of “us and them,” internalizing the value system of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, blind spots developed, the capacity for empathy needed for the building of community was diminished. To heal our wounded body politic we must reaffirm our commitment to a vision of what King referred to in the essay “Facing the Challenge of a New Age” as a genuine commitment to “freedom and justice for all.” My heart is uplifted when I read King’s essay; I am reminded where true liberation leads us. It leads us beyond resistance to transformation. King tells us that “the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption,
the end is the creation of the beloved community.” The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.
INDEX
African American art history
29
African voyages to America, before Columbian
233
,
235
–
6
Almodóvar, Pedro
59
Amadeus (film)
56
Amerikka’s Most Wanted (Ice Cube)
145
–
6
Angry Women (Juno and Vale)
49
,
243
–
4
anonymity in feminism
107
antifeminist backlash
86
–
8
,
105
,
125
,
135
anti-Semitism
80
antisex conservative gender rights propaganda
93
Ariès, Philippe
267
Art of the Maasai, The (Turle)
32
,
41
Artforum
29
Asian women
257
Audubon Ballroom
226
Australian bark painting
31
Autobiography of Malcolm X, The (Haley)
186
Bad Lieutenant, The (film)
142
Baker, Josephine
24
“Ballot or the Bullet, The” (Malcolm X)
217
Baraka, Amiri
184
Barnard College
254
Basquiat, Gerard
38
Basquiat, Jean-Michel: and black body
30
–
2
; and Eurocentrism
28
–
9
; and jazz
35
–
6
; longing for
fame
33
–
4
,
36
; parents
38
–
9
; Whitney exhibition
27
–
8
,
39
–
41
Bassett, Angela
45
Baudrillard, Jean
271
Beauty Myth, The (Wolf)
110
,
119
Bernhard, Sandra
56
Berry, Chuck
260
Between Borders (Giroux and McLaren)
4
Birth of a Nation (film)
135
“Black America” (Marable)
128
“Black and White All Over” (Penizzi)
37
Black Film Review
182
black liberation
75
,
76
–
7
,
84
,
202
–
4
Black Looks: Race and Representation (hooks)
43
,
45
,
73
,
78
,
89
,
231
,
235
,
281
black men: as disenfranchised
129
; and fear of whites
252
–
3
; and grief
159
; relations with black women
129
–
33
,
161
–
7
,
209
–
11
,
226
–
8
; as subject to dominant culture values
135
–
9
Black Power movement
76
,
203
–
4
,
208
,
291
black women: in academe
276
–
7
; and beauty
202
–
13
; and bonding
254
–
5
; in rap music
162
–
3
; relations with Asian women
257
; relations with black men
129
–
33
,
161
–
7
,
209
–
11
,
226
–
8
; representations in film
44
–
60
,
65
,
184
–
6
,
210
; and stress
261
–
2
; and white drag
210
Blackman’s Guide, The (Ali)
219
blackness: criticism of
82
; love of
73
,
211
; shame of
266
; in white imagination
36
,
63
Bloom, Harold
97
“Blues for Mr. Spielberg” (Wallace)
183
–
4
Bluest Eye, The (Morrison)
251
Bly, Robert
143
Bodyguard, The (film)
44
,
45
,
48
,
49
,
51
,
63
–
72
Bomb magazine
64
Bomb Squad, The
146
Boomerang (film)
197
Bordo, Susan
14
Bosnia
50
“Boys Will Be Girls” (Tyler)
24
Boyz N the Hood (film)
153
Brother from Another Planet (film)
58
Brownmiller, Susan
110
Burnett, Charles
58
Butler, Judith
122
By Any Means Necessary (Lee)
186
,
188
Canadian government
73
capitalism: in “new feminism”
114
–
15
; and poverty
199
; not self-determination
146
,
173
Capra, Fritjof
269
censorship: within black intellectual life
74
–
84
,
177
–
8
; by Far Right
74
; in feminism
75
–
84
,
110
,
117
; on the left
76
; Malcolm X
221
–
2
; of the self
80
–
4
Centuries of Childhood (Ariès)
267
–
8
Chapman, Tracy
210
“Charles the First” (Basquiat)
34
children
1
–
2
,
8
,
148
–
9
,
165
–
6
,
211
,
249
,
268
City of Hope (film)
58
Clark, Septima
297
Class (Fussell)
169
class in black life
6
,
20
–
1
,
74
–
5
,
169
–
79
,
193
–
201
Cleaver, Eldridge
206
Clinton administration
144
Coleman, Wanda
257
colonialism: black bodies and
68
; internalized
173
,
202
,
260
; as masculine
237
–
8
; as mindset
6
Color Purple, The (film)
183
“Columbus Debate” (Hogan)
240
“Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress” (Zinn)
236
,
237
commodification of blackness
173
,
174
,
178
,
190
commonality of feeling
256
communities
1
–
2
,
236
,
263
–
4
,
278
,
296
constructive contestation
84
,
118
,
127
Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Rorty)
278
“conversion process”
112
Cosby Show
160
Costner, Kevin
48
,
49
,
64
,
65
,
66
,
69
,
72
Crenshaw, Kimberlé
122
“Crowns (Peso Neto)” (Basquiat)
34
Crying Game, The (film)
44
,
48
,
49
,
59
,
63
–
72
cultural studies
2
,
3
–
5
,
7
,
64
,
98
,
190
Culture of Poverty, The (Stack)
199
Curie, Marie
269
Dalai Lama
284
Dances with Wolves (film)
48
,
280
–
1
Davidson, Jaye
65
Death Certificate (Ice Cube)
145
–
6
degradation, sex as
94
deinstitutionalization of learning
275
denial
288
desire as replacement for struggle
49
,
60
destiny
268
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Foucault)
275
Doggystyle (Snoop Doggy Dogg)
138
domination: acceptance of
173
; addiction and
272
; colonization
233
–
4
; culture of
287
–
8
; eroticized
141
; gangsta rap and
135
; Madonna and
25
; marginalized communities
277
; movements to end
84
,
290
;
privacy and
265
; repudiation of
7
,
239
Dr. Dre
178