Bell Hooks: The Power Of Liberation

I had a really fun time picking at the brain of some of my friends on this passage by Bell Hooks. I enjoy the freedom to choose who I work with because I feel like if I was forced into a group with those who weren’t comfortable with speaking, we wouldn’t be able to tackle this question because no one would be comfortable working outside of surface level knowledge and experiences. It was really interesting to see how well we work together in structural problem solving. We we tasked with tackling the important question of what the power of liberation would look like in relation to this quote: “Women’s liberationists, white and black, will always be at odds with one another as long as our idea of liberation is based on having the power white

The goal isn’t to be like a certain singular group because then you get into the problem of the “supreme race” or the “supreme demographic” which is why we’re having to abolish the system in the first place. You have to have a system of power where there aren’t rewards based on demographics such as race and class. Instead of using a singular model, use multiple based on different groups. When we got to this portion, I brought up what many people view as feminism in the present day. Many ignorant/uneducated individuals view feminism as taking power away from men and giving it to women to make them more power. Whenever I hear this I die a little inside and bring up the definition of the word equality in hopes of easily breaking down the concept. When we tackled this portion, we really stressed the need for instead of an ideal ___, we needed people to have equality so they don’t have to spend their entire life trying to be like someone else. At the end of the class, we basically decided that the liberative power is the freedom of creativity. It stems from the individuality of each person on this earth, and it’s the one power that destroys the means of having to conform to a supreme demographic. If we truly want to give people the ability to liberate themselves from an oppressive power structure, then we need to make it so they can live their lives outside of the system

Yes, we spent your class plotting to overthrow this capitalist patriarchal society. By creating a new system with the foundation of true diversity and creativity, we can truly liberate ourselves and those around us. This is why intersectional feminism is so important as well. We talk about this in the group when I brought up the quote that says “The first white women’s rights advocates were never seeking social equality for all women; they were seeking social equality for white women” because in the group that’s supposed to be advocating for women, it’s erasing the diverse individuals that exist in multiple demographics. You have to remember that white women aren’t the only type of women around, and if you stray from that, can you really call yourself an advocate if you’re not fighting for all the oppressed groups that you’re supposedly representing? Can you really say your fighting for everyone’s rights, or are you just fighting for the ones that will directly benefit you? To start to break down this system, everyone has to be on the same page. We have to be unified. Liberation starts when the oppressed share the mindset that something has to change, and that it’s up to them to do it. We’ll never have this liberatitive power if we don’t unify against the oppressive power structure that created this mess in the first place. To amend my previous statement, this