Holy Woman

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Recommended: Relation between religion and politics

Holy Woman

Introduction

Do you feel alone, underappreciated or even oppressed by others oaround you urging you to ‘change’ to be someone other than you authentic self? Why/ how does this notion of radical belief structures, such as patriarchy, fit into Jesus’ concept of discipleship and solidarity? In a world where even faith is segregated into a white woman’s Christ and a black woman’s Jesus, how does someone like myself of mixed ancestry, find an identity in a world that is often viewed as black or white, but not in varying shades of gray? In the Bible it states “Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight” Proverbs (12:22). In the following paper I will critically assess the life and efforts of bell hooks as a holy woman. My intent is to discern relevant links to faith seeking understanding through both lived and shared experience.

Literature Review

We begin with Gloria Jean Watkins being born on September 25, 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky (hooks, 2009). She grew up in a middle class family with five sisters and a brother. Her father, Veodis Watkins, worked as a custodian who told her she was “too strong willed for any man to want to marry” (hooks, 2009). She grew up watching her mother, Rosa Bell Watkins being abused as a homemaker. In her childhood, she was also, an avid reader and pursuer of knowledge with a passion for Dickens.

Her early childhood education took place in southern segregated government funded schools, and she wrote of her struggles while making the transition to an integrated school, where teachers and students were predominantly white (hooks, 2009). After graduating from high school in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, hooks earned her B.A. in English at Stanford Univers...

... middle of paper ...

...ws/2006/02/10/News/Bell-Hooks.Speaks.Up-1602355.shtml?norewrite200609102135&sourcedomain=www.thesandspur.org. Retrieved 2010-04-09.

bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics Pluto Press, 2000

Apple, L., hooks digs in, 05-24-02. http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2002-05-24/93217.

Online article retrieved May 15, 2011

Retrieved 2010-05-13. ^ Notes on IAPL 2001 Keynote Speaker, bell hooks

Building a Community of Love, bell hooks & Thich Nhat Hanh

(hooks, Teaching to Transgress 12)

(hooks, 11)

Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, Peter Schweizer, Doubleday, 2005, p.9 . ISBN 0385513496. OCLC 62110441.

hooks, bell. Killing Rage, p. 8. Henry Holt & Co. New York, NY. 1995 . ISBN 0805037829. OCLC 32089130.

Berry, W., 2002. The Art of the Common-Place: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, Washington, DC.

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