Day 1 Clarification Questions (Members: )
Questions
Day 1 Discussion Questions (Members: )
Sarah Edwards:
Hooks talks in depth about the formation of a Black elite, noting that “a decolonized militant self-determined black population” is much more threatening to the status quo than a black population divided along class lines (92). However, if one of the goals of mobilizing the black population is to eliminate elitism and create a notion of solidarity, how can Hooks' conception of class be seen to complicate that objective?
Logan Miller
Early on, Hooks tells us that she learned the "art of sublimation in repression" in relation to her desires. If this is a shared experience for many poorer families, then how does this affect the political? Are these people, the ones with their desires so rigorously repressed, the ones who advocate for 'pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps' as it were?
Blake Ladenburg
Hooks talks extensively on the experience of living in an elite world as a non-privledged individual. She expresses on many occasions the effect this had on her, her desires, and her understanding of herself. She continually described herself as an "outsider," isolated from the elite's world, and the desires those of privilege or aspire to privilege have. She insinuated, in my opinion, that class was defined, and controlled by the elite. The elite class is what individuals aspire too, and it is what is allowable to demonstrate. With this understanding of class do individuals actually self-identify as working/middle/lower/poor class, or is it an identity assigned to them? Even if they do self-identify as a member of a non-privledged class, how do they define that experience?
Quinn Lincoln
Hooks says: "In a society like ours where class is rarely, if ever, talked about, it is worthy of not that whenever racism in real estate and housing is talked about, most white people will argue that discrimination is really about class rather than race." (134). In our society, is class discrimination inherently racist?
Nick Hochfeld On page 138, hooks calls into question the class ascension of white women and its effects on black housing. Engaging with Barefoot, she writes “the upwardly mobile class aspiration of white women have also been a catalyst for the displacement of people of color.” (138). As upperclass white women move away from men and find their own independence through individual living, they are forcing out black women from the area. How can we reconcile the benefits and disadvantages of one demographic’s emancipation when it comes at the cost of hurting another?
Furthermore, how can we examine the “white savior mentality”? When upper middle class whites seek to volunteer abroad with the goal of experiencing the exotic, but also helping those populations in need, are we to discourage them? While many travelers will ignore the plight of their black neighbors, they are still engaged in helping those abroad. I believe this falls under the same question as the condition of white women: how do we reconcile the benefits and disadvantages of aiding different demographics?
Nate Olson:
Hooks notes that upper-class whites use racial fear to keep lower-class whites on their side. She also insinuates that upper-class blacks are complicit in this system in an attempt to retain their privilege. How are both class and race used by upper-class whites to maintain their hegemony over others?
Andrew Durand:
hooks notes, "nowadays practically every public representation of blackness is created by black folks who are materially privileged" (95). How does hooks believe that intersecting modes of privilege are able to marginalize individuals with some collective experience?
Valentina Lopez-Cortes: On page 94 hooks writes about “selling blackness” as a commodity- I wonder if current popular culture’s infatuation with the African American lower class’ “lifestyle” is a result the commodification of this glamorization of poor black culture that hooks writes about?
Andy Monserud
Hooks sees DuBois' "Talented Tenth" theory as largely a failure, having created an estranged black elite with little interest in the black masses. What exactly would she expect from a black elite in order to fulfill the duties DuBois ascribed to them?
Ione Fullerton
Hooks chapter "Coming to Class Consciousness" is poignant, raw, and reflective. "Slowly I began to understand fully that there was no place in academe for folks from working-class backgrounds who did not wish to leave the past behind" (36). What is at stake for the working class when its "successful" youth are shuttled through an education system that begs them to forget their past? Is there a healthy space in the education system for the working class in the status quo (has this changed since Hook's time)?
Sam Jacobson
On page 120 Hooks states that “today poverty is both gendered and racialized” and that “the struggle to end poverty could easily become the civil rights issue with the broadest appeal – uniting groups that have never before taken a stand together.” Given the other texts and ideas that we have encountered in this class, do people think this could really be the case?
Emma Dulaney
Hooks argues that "practically every public representation of blackness is created by black folks who are materially privileged," (95). How do black hip hop artists fit into this category of representation? How do their narratives about the true conditions of the working class black America shape the public truth?
On this note, Hook says "constructive class solidarity" is the key to getting black needs "articulated and addressed" (99). How do rappers such as Kendrick Lamar work to create class solidarity? How does his type of solidarity differ from political movements like #BlackLivesMatter in it's appeal to popular culture as a whole?
Nathan Gruenberg: Just after the quote Ione pointed us to in her question, Hooks states, “Students from nonprivileged backgrounds who did not want to forget often had nervous breakdowns. The could not bear the weight of all the contradictions they had to confront. […] More often than not they dropped out with no trace of their inner anguish recorded, no institutional record of the myriad of ways their take on the world was assaulted by an elite vision of class and privilege” (Hooks, 37). Hooks is alluding that there really is no space outside of the elite capitalist perspective. If one wants to fit in and be able to enact change, they must buy in to the dominant system, and once that is done they will have more than likely forgetting about the change they were set out to do. Thus, problems faced by the lower class are not only ignored, they are made invisible. This prompts me to ask, are there any systems in place that allow for the lower class to foster self-improvement, or will it have to come from an outside source? To me it seems like it is a self-fulfilling prophecy of neglect.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 2 Text Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 2 Discussion Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 2 Clarification Questions (Members: )
Questions
Day 2 Discussion Questions (Members: )
Questions
Emma Dulaney:
How does the feminine experience differ based on race and economic class? And how is this difference heightened by "privileged passivity?" (104)
Sam Jacobson
On page 130 how does bell hooks distinguish between the ideas of empathy and solidarity? Is this distinction an important one to make? Is it accurate? Can you have one solidarity without empathy? Is empathy important to have when it comes to repudiating exploitation?
Ione Fullerton
"I have hoped to share that the pain of being with-out enough money to survive adequately or well, that the widening gap between rich and poor, causes pain far beyond economic suffering, that it rends and breaks us psychologically, tearing us asunder..." (158). How might this evidence Hook's purposeful "non-privileging" of other evidence over personal and experiential narrative, as we discussed in class on Tuesday? What might the effect of this "non-privileging" have on the reader, depending on their class position? What criticism does this strategy open her writing up to?
Logan Miller
Hooks claims that reformist thinkers have undermined feminist politics through the manipulation of class issues, what examples can you think of this in action?
Jenny Gruenberg
Hooks gives many examples of the way in which the visibility and discussion of class has become invisible. In her discussion of "white trash" she states, "it is particularly unseemly when they appear to shamefully flaunt their trashiness, which, after all, is nothing but an aggressively in-your-face remind of stark class difference" (112). The "white trash" class appears to be one of the only classes Hook discusses that does not buy into the collective social norms or status quo. Does their lack of a social and societal buy-in make them a dangerous or revolutionary class? In the eyes of whom? Why is this specific class able to maintain its autonomy yet seemingly unable to garner any social power in the eyes of society? Can power come from being labeled a dismissed class? How does dismissal differ from invisibility, for example the way in which class became invisible in the feminist movement at a specific and strategic point.
Quinn Lincoln
How does the media's portrayal of poverty impact racial perceptions in our society? What benefits (if any) come out of these portrayals?
Nick Hochfeld
How does bell hooks's more casual tone and lack of footnotes impact both her message and the legitimacy? Does she achieve her goal of being more accessible?
Nate Olson
Are there other civil rights and social justice struggles where class differences have introduced tension into the movement, similar to the reformist/revolutionary split in feminism that hooks outlines?
Andy Monserud
How does hooks' discussion of white poverty vs. black poverty fit in with more traditional interpretations of class-- for example, that offered by Marx?
Andrew Durand
hooks states that, “most privileged class white women and their upwardly mobile peers of other races wanted class privilege and social equality with men of their class more than freedom for themselves and their exploited oppressed sisters” (106). How would the feminist consciousness that hooks suggest overcome the divide created by class?
Blake Ladenburg:
Hook states, "It was not common knowledge that capitalism required surplus labor, that there would always be more workers than available jobs, In fact, most black folks naively believed that if racism and the job discrimination it condoned ended, there would be jobs for everyone" (123). What she eludes to is that it the system of oppression faced by the disadvantaged won't be dismantled just by ending racism. It instead requires class solidarity and class social movements of the poor to effectuate change. In this understanding how does Bell Hooks argument compare to Marx? Is this lack of awareness still present today?
Nathan Gruenberg: It has been argued that both the establishment of Slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws were established in order to separate poor whites from poor blacks in an effort to stifle any opportunity for the collective poor (regardless of race) to come together and form a large social movement revolution. Bell Hooks states that “the struggle for poverty could easily become the civil rights appeal—uniting groups that have never before taken a stand together to support their common hope of living in a more democratic and just world” (Hooks, 120). Even though Jim Crow laws have been outlawed for almost a decade, why have these groups not unified and spurred a “proletariate” overthrow? What restrictions (rhetorical, political, ideological) have been placed upon these groups that effectively keeps them separated and stifles this (according to Marx) eventual overthrow?
Map
Day 1 Discussion Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 1 Clarification Questions (Members: )
Questions
Day 1 Discussion Questions (Members: )
Sarah Edwards:
Hooks talks in depth about the formation of a Black elite, noting that “a decolonized militant self-determined black population” is much more threatening to the status quo than a black population divided along class lines (92). However, if one of the goals of mobilizing the black population is to eliminate elitism and create a notion of solidarity, how can Hooks' conception of class be seen to complicate that objective?
Logan Miller
Early on, Hooks tells us that she learned the "art of sublimation in repression" in relation to her desires. If this is a shared experience for many poorer families, then how does this affect the political? Are these people, the ones with their desires so rigorously repressed, the ones who advocate for 'pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps' as it were?
Blake Ladenburg
Hooks talks extensively on the experience of living in an elite world as a non-privledged individual. She expresses on many occasions the effect this had on her, her desires, and her understanding of herself. She continually described herself as an "outsider," isolated from the elite's world, and the desires those of privilege or aspire to privilege have. She insinuated, in my opinion, that class was defined, and controlled by the elite. The elite class is what individuals aspire too, and it is what is allowable to demonstrate. With this understanding of class do individuals actually self-identify as working/middle/lower/poor class, or is it an identity assigned to them? Even if they do self-identify as a member of a non-privledged class, how do they define that experience?
Quinn Lincoln
Hooks says: "In a society like ours where class is rarely, if ever, talked about, it is worthy of not that whenever racism in real estate and housing is talked about, most white people will argue that discrimination is really about class rather than race." (134). In our society, is class discrimination inherently racist?
Nick Hochfeld
On page 138, hooks calls into question the class ascension of white women and its effects on black housing. Engaging with Barefoot, she writes “the upwardly mobile class aspiration of white women have also been a catalyst for the displacement of people of color.” (138). As upperclass white women move away from men and find their own independence through individual living, they are forcing out black women from the area. How can we reconcile the benefits and disadvantages of one demographic’s emancipation when it comes at the cost of hurting another?
Furthermore, how can we examine the “white savior mentality”? When upper middle class whites seek to volunteer abroad with the goal of experiencing the exotic, but also helping those populations in need, are we to discourage them? While many travelers will ignore the plight of their black neighbors, they are still engaged in helping those abroad. I believe this falls under the same question as the condition of white women: how do we reconcile the benefits and disadvantages of aiding different demographics?
Nate Olson:
Hooks notes that upper-class whites use racial fear to keep lower-class whites on their side. She also insinuates that upper-class blacks are complicit in this system in an attempt to retain their privilege. How are both class and race used by upper-class whites to maintain their hegemony over others?
Andrew Durand:
hooks notes, "nowadays practically every public representation of blackness is created by black folks who are materially privileged" (95). How does hooks believe that intersecting modes of privilege are able to marginalize individuals with some collective experience?
Valentina Lopez-Cortes:
On page 94 hooks writes about “selling blackness” as a commodity- I wonder if current popular culture’s infatuation with the African American lower class’ “lifestyle” is a result the commodification of this glamorization of poor black culture that hooks writes about?
Andy Monserud
Hooks sees DuBois' "Talented Tenth" theory as largely a failure, having created an estranged black elite with little interest in the black masses. What exactly would she expect from a black elite in order to fulfill the duties DuBois ascribed to them?
Ione Fullerton
Hooks chapter "Coming to Class Consciousness" is poignant, raw, and reflective. "Slowly I began to understand fully that there was no place in academe for folks from working-class backgrounds who did not wish to leave the past behind" (36). What is at stake for the working class when its "successful" youth are shuttled through an education system that begs them to forget their past? Is there a healthy space in the education system for the working class in the status quo (has this changed since Hook's time)?
Sam Jacobson
On page 120 Hooks states that “today poverty is both gendered and racialized” and that “the struggle to end poverty could easily become the civil rights issue with the broadest appeal – uniting groups that have never before taken a stand together.” Given the other texts and ideas that we have encountered in this class, do people think this could really be the case?
Emma Dulaney
Hooks argues that "practically every public representation of blackness is created by black folks who are materially privileged," (95). How do black hip hop artists fit into this category of representation? How do their narratives about the true conditions of the working class black America shape the public truth?
On this note, Hook says "constructive class solidarity" is the key to getting black needs "articulated and addressed" (99). How do rappers such as Kendrick Lamar work to create class solidarity? How does his type of solidarity differ from political movements like #BlackLivesMatter in it's appeal to popular culture as a whole?
Nathan Gruenberg:
Just after the quote Ione pointed us to in her question, Hooks states, “Students from nonprivileged backgrounds who did not want to forget often had nervous breakdowns. The could not bear the weight of all the contradictions they had to confront. […] More often than not they dropped out with no trace of their inner anguish recorded, no institutional record of the myriad of ways their take on the world was assaulted by an elite vision of class and privilege” (Hooks, 37). Hooks is alluding that there really is no space outside of the elite capitalist perspective. If one wants to fit in and be able to enact change, they must buy in to the dominant system, and once that is done they will have more than likely forgetting about the change they were set out to do. Thus, problems faced by the lower class are not only ignored, they are made invisible. This prompts me to ask, are there any systems in place that allow for the lower class to foster self-improvement, or will it have to come from an outside source? To me it seems like it is a self-fulfilling prophecy of neglect.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 2 Text Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 2 Discussion Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 2 Clarification Questions (Members: )
Questions
Day 2 Discussion Questions (Members: )
Questions
Emma Dulaney:
How does the feminine experience differ based on race and economic class? And how is this difference heightened by "privileged passivity?" (104)
Sam Jacobson
On page 130 how does bell hooks distinguish between the ideas of empathy and solidarity? Is this distinction an important one to make? Is it accurate? Can you have one solidarity without empathy? Is empathy important to have when it comes to repudiating exploitation?
Ione Fullerton
"I have hoped to share that the pain of being with-out enough money to survive adequately or well, that the widening gap between rich and poor, causes pain far beyond economic suffering, that it rends and breaks us psychologically, tearing us asunder..." (158). How might this evidence Hook's purposeful "non-privileging" of other evidence over personal and experiential narrative, as we discussed in class on Tuesday? What might the effect of this "non-privileging" have on the reader, depending on their class position? What criticism does this strategy open her writing up to?
Logan Miller
Hooks claims that reformist thinkers have undermined feminist politics through the manipulation of class issues, what examples can you think of this in action?
Jenny Gruenberg
Hooks gives many examples of the way in which the visibility and discussion of class has become invisible. In her discussion of "white trash" she states, "it is particularly unseemly when they appear to shamefully flaunt their trashiness, which, after all, is nothing but an aggressively in-your-face remind of stark class difference" (112). The "white trash" class appears to be one of the only classes Hook discusses that does not buy into the collective social norms or status quo. Does their lack of a social and societal buy-in make them a dangerous or revolutionary class? In the eyes of whom? Why is this specific class able to maintain its autonomy yet seemingly unable to garner any social power in the eyes of society? Can power come from being labeled a dismissed class? How does dismissal differ from invisibility, for example the way in which class became invisible in the feminist movement at a specific and strategic point.
Quinn Lincoln
How does the media's portrayal of poverty impact racial perceptions in our society? What benefits (if any) come out of these portrayals?
Nick Hochfeld
How does bell hooks's more casual tone and lack of footnotes impact both her message and the legitimacy? Does she achieve her goal of being more accessible?
Nate Olson
Are there other civil rights and social justice struggles where class differences have introduced tension into the movement, similar to the reformist/revolutionary split in feminism that hooks outlines?
Andy Monserud
How does hooks' discussion of white poverty vs. black poverty fit in with more traditional interpretations of class-- for example, that offered by Marx?
Andrew Durand
hooks states that, “most privileged class white women and their upwardly mobile peers of other races wanted class privilege and social equality with men of their class more than freedom for themselves and their exploited oppressed sisters” (106). How would the feminist consciousness that hooks suggest overcome the divide created by class?
Blake Ladenburg:
Hook states, "It was not common knowledge that capitalism required surplus labor, that there would always be more workers than available jobs, In fact, most black folks naively believed that if racism and the job discrimination it condoned ended, there would be jobs for everyone" (123). What she eludes to is that it the system of oppression faced by the disadvantaged won't be dismantled just by ending racism. It instead requires class solidarity and class social movements of the poor to effectuate change. In this understanding how does Bell Hooks argument compare to Marx? Is this lack of awareness still present today?
Nathan Gruenberg:
It has been argued that both the establishment of Slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws were established in order to separate poor whites from poor blacks in an effort to stifle any opportunity for the collective poor (regardless of race) to come together and form a large social movement revolution. Bell Hooks states that “the struggle for poverty could easily become the civil rights appeal—uniting groups that have never before taken a stand together to support their common hope of living in a more democratic and just world” (Hooks, 120). Even though Jim Crow laws have been outlawed for almost a decade, why have these groups not unified and spurred a “proletariate” overthrow? What restrictions (rhetorical, political, ideological) have been placed upon these groups that effectively keeps them separated and stifles this (according to Marx) eventual overthrow?