Killing Rage: Ending Racism

by bell hooks

Book Overview

"hooks's books help us not only to decolonize our minds, souls, and bodies; on a deeper level, they touch our lives." --Cornel West
More than two decades before Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement roiled America, bell hooks was declaring that abolishing racism and eradicating sexism must go hand in hand. In Killing Rage, one of our premier cultural and social critics brings the Black feminist's voice to bear on this country's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805050272
• ISBN13: 9780805050271
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Life-Changing

This was my first bell hooks book and, while I wouldn't say I am anywhere near as militant as she is, it gave voice to so many concerns I'd had over the years but didn't have the words or insight to explain. What a magnificent work.

How we can all help each other

This book gives a nuanced observation to the white supremacist structure of our society in America and how this structure is continually reinforced through the socialization and mentality of all races. hooks speaks of the tool of the media depicting the portrayal of People of Color (especially the double minorities: Women of color). The systematic procedures of the judicial system and law enforcement that inevitably predicts and breeds the dynamics of societies where blacks are the eyesores of society. Then she addresses the internal problems of the Black community in relation to the color-caste system and the capitalistic and patriarchal view African-Americans oppress themselves with. She includes her experiences in relation to how she interacted with Whites who were unaware of their supremacist behavior and Blacks who were assimilated and exhibited this same elitist attitude. This is an excellent book on bringing us together as a people to help end this oppressive structure to society and the responsiblity all races have to reaching this goal. Until then, America is a racial melting pot where there is only one chef in the kitchen.

Facing Racism Head On

Bell Hooks covers all bases with the most pertinent issues that involve racism. KILLING RAGE: ENDING RACISM is an interesting critical assessment that does not only involve African Americans, but all Americans who want to understand why racism still exists. Three major issues in the book remain in my mind and were constantly repeated in most of the chapters: self-determination, White Supremacy, and decolonization. These issues, according to Hooks, are the root and the action for resolve in understanding the racism in the United States. For a long time, the "R" word has been an invisible subject, that never comes to a resolve when it is discussed -- a neverending circle. Hooks suggests that there is a sense of denial or amnesia. Hooks makes a good point when she discusses the issue of race as it pertains whether or not black and white women can be friends. She concludes: "If white and black women were collectively working to change society so that we could know one another better and be able to offer acknowledgment and respect, then we would be playing a major role in ending racism. As long as white and black women are content with living separately in a state of psychic social apartheid, racism will not change"(224). She goes on about patriarchy and sexism, which tend to be the where incohesiveness exists. However, white and black women relations have more in common in ending the gap by building a bridge toward activism. For the most part, when it all comes down to it, everything that Hooks discusses leads to "let's face" the problem of racism. She states that it is possible, and it all depends on the individual, and building a community that educates and talks about learning about racism and how to deter it. KILLING RAGE is one of many books that critically analyzes racism, and Hooks' criticism was extremely understandable and directly to the point. However, the book may have been more effective if she provided the voices, such as oral testimonies, of the people that have helped to deter the problem. The majority of the sources she used were predominantly secondary sources from previous scholarship. She makes assumptions, which contribute to a little gray areas in the book, such as when she briefly refers to non-blacks and how they may fit into the equation -- Native Americans and Asians. But overall, this is an important subject that needs attention as long as the problem exists.

A passionate call for "race talk" and Black consciousness

I'm sort of a bell hooks fan. I've always liked her keen intelligence, lucid writing, and her ability to name oppressive forces that impact us all.Many people will not like hooks because she doesn't write from an activist experience. She's primarily a cultural critic, providing insight and analysis rather than strategy and tactics. Her lack of political activism is indeed problematic, but as an activist teacher, I turn to hooks for inspiration and vision for how to engage my students and other folks in the educational community in visions of radical change.In "Killing Rage," hooks comes on very strong in naming racism as a White, patriarcial, capitalist enterprise. In providing this analysis, hooks is examining instutions of both covert and institutionalized racism, the latter of which is harder to name and explain. In this work, bell argues that the ending of racism must come through a "collecitve black rage." which means that "Progressive black activists must show how we take that rage and move it beyond fruitless scapegoating of any group, linking it instead to a passion for freedom and justice that illuminates, heals, and makes redemptive struggle possible." In other words, bell is spreaking of what took place in the Black power movement in which collective black rage rose up against racist aparthied in America. But she's not advocating that we build on the Black Power struggles of the sixities. Collective Black rage must include solidarity with Black feminist struggle and solidarity with class struggle along all racial lines. While hooks does not seek to exclude White allies in the struggle to end racism, "Killing Rage" seems largely targeted to African people. She's calling for African people redefine Black identity, "one that is not sexist, homophobic, patriarchal, or supportive of capitalism." Lastly, I want to point out how hooks argues that this struggle to end racism must be tied an edcuational agenda. She writes: "Until all black people address the educational crisis in black life, we cannot hope to attain collective self-detremination. As long as progressive radical black folks ignore secondary edcuation and fail to take the initiative to call for and demand progressive anti-racist, anti-sexist education for black children, and all children, our communities will be deluged by folks who see bourgeois partirarchal pedagogy as the only hope." For me, this says it all. I strongly encourage freedom-loving people to read this book.

A marvelous literary work that gets to the heart of racism

As a student of sociology and contemporary critical literature, I find this book to be of indescribable significance. As White Americans, what we often miss is that the issues of race and class inequality are just as present today as they were before the Civil-Rights movements. What this movement did is bring these problems to the attention of mainstream, White America-yet it did not solve it in any way. In these essays, Bell Hooks does an especially nice job of making it apparent that all White America has done about the issues of race and class is "slip it under the rug." Some readers have found her writings to be evidence of ranting and raving or the victimization of Black Americans. It has been said that she hates Whites. Yet these comments are evidence that White America desperately needs to face its prejudiced views-and Bell Hooks shows provides us with a wonderful opportunity to do so. A must read!