Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks
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Book Reviews of Where We Stand: Class Matters
Book Review: Towards a Just Society
Summary: 4 Stars
I recommend this book. This is the first bell hooks I have read, and was deeply impressed by her clear, rooted moral position on the state of American and global society. Her writing in this piece shifts from a narrative of her own history growing up in the South, to a present academic, political critique of today.
I found her writing fluid and her point of view significant. As a black woman in America and someone who has experienced lower and upper class existence and the according journey between them, her perspective is complex, making her voice deep and necessary.
In no way can I specify difference with this book. She calls for a morally just society, which denounces the consumerism that perpetuates exploitation, racism, sexism while it is advertised and fantasized about as a life pursuit. Seeing the current issue of Newsweek's cover story, titled "How to Win," regarding a CEO's expertise in making money and succeeding the "American way," immediately brought Where We Stand into consideration.
This book is a call to action, and an illumination of the depressing and unjust, cruel and foolish system which ignores and is afraid of reforming itself enough to allow for "a world where we can all have enough to live fully and well."
I particularly appreciated her chapters on living simply, and think it is an appropriate and bold call to make in a place where stuff and acquisition are social symbols of significance.
To conclude, I found this description of class from page 103, by Rita Mae Brown, to be important: "Class is much more than Marx's definition of relationship to the means of production. Class involves behavior, your basic assumptions, how you are taught to behave, what you expect from yourself and from others, your concept of a future, how you understand problems and solve them, how you think, feel, act."
Book Review: Review on bell hooks Where We Stand
Summary: 4 Stars
Reading bell hooks, Where We Stand, was a challenge in itself. I had never thought of myself as being racist or having strong bias against any one group of people, but I did find myself getting angry with some of the things that she wrote about. I thought in the beginning that she painted a very sad harsh picture of her life growing up, and the trials she had to go through to get where she wanted to be. They were long and hard days, but she did get there. What I was most frustrated with was her repetitive nature. It was almost like she was going to make sure we GOT IT! I just think that when someone is on a soapbox about something they beat the subject matter into their audience's head until it is no longer interesting. I found myself becoming defensive about things. I got frustrated with her at times, but then I read on and began to see the injustices that were out there. Making it unfair in many different ways for blacks. I particularly felt strong about a chapter dealing with real estate, and how it is manipulated by "desirables" to keep "the undesirables" out. It is sad to think that you can put a dollar amount on the color of a person's skin. I felt ashamed at times, thinking the same things perhaps at one time or another. This reading has helped me grow as a person and it opened me up to the ways of the world. At least I hope that it has. I suggest that everyone takes a look, it will be worth it.
Book Review: Review of Where We Stand by bell hooks
Summary: 4 Stars
Reading bell hooks, Where We Stand, was a challenge in itself. I had never thought of myself as being racist or having strong bias against any one group of people, but I did find myself getting angry with some of the things that she wrote about. I thought in the beginning that she painted a very sad harsh picture of her life growing up, and the trials she had to go through to get where she wanted to be. They were long and hard days, but she did get there. What I was most frustrated with was her repetitive nature. It was almost like she was going to make sure we GOT IT! I just think that when someone is on a soapbox about something they beat the subject matter into their audience's head until it is no longer interesting. I found myself becoming defensive about things. I got frustrated with her at times, but then I read on and began to see the injustices that were out there. Making it unfair in many different ways for blacks. I particularly felt strong about a chapter dealing with real estate, and how it is manipulated by "desirables" to keep "the undesirables" out. It is sad to think that you can put a dollar amount on the color of a person's skin. I felt ashamed at times, thinking the same things perhaps at one time or another. This reading has helped me grow as a person and it opened me up to the ways of the world. At least I hope that it has. I suggest that everyone takes a look, it will be worth it.
Book Review: My thoughts on social class and materialism
Summary: 4 Stars
I was raised in a house where there wasn't a lack of money but there definetly wasn't a surplus. We belived God would meet our needs and everything beyond that was a blessing. I have two theories that I always live by. One is that until you reach not only a certain age but a certain level of maturity nothing you have is a direct reflection of your own accomplishments. Furthermore, there is a belief that comes with being a Christian that material possesions lack importance anyway. Why? Because they are only precious in the human eye. Meaning that they carry no value in any after-life. Reading books like this make me thank God that I was raised to look at and live for more than today. I strive to gain everlasting riches in life. My rewards are in heaven where I shall make my home.Book Review: standing at the center of a exploration
Summary: 4 Stars
This book cuts to the bone of fleshy ignorance. Most of us hear about the particular "ism's" that plague our culture, racism this or sexism that. Yet she somehow, in one brilliant piece of writing, cuts through all the social trappings and gets to the heart of it. She describes class in a way that seems so simple to see, and yet so foreign to my mind. The history of hooks comes to me by way of ideas that were carefully sifted through. The reading is easy, but the pin point accuracy of her thoughts take some getting use to. It may seem a little one sided at first, but it soon flowers into a real social workbook.