Killing Rage: Ending Racism

hooks links the white supremacist oppression faced by Black people in the US to the oppression faced by Black people in South Africa. She discusses why she uses the term “white supremacy” instead of “racism” (184). The former encompasses white liberals who have publicly denounced overt racism but still utilize the system of white supremacy. They cannot overcome this system of thinking unless they realize the subtler ways in which they support institutionalized oppression. Some Black people are not racist but still dominate other Black people using white supremacist tactics. hooks argues that the term “Uncle Tom” needs to be replaced to encompass how Black people participate in cultures of microaggressions, rather than cultures of blatant racism (186).

hooks continues by claiming that one aspect of white supremacy that Black people have utilized, and internalized, is assimilation. Some of this assimilation began during racial integration when Black people were rewarded for emulating white values. hooks states that loving Blackness alongside resisting assimilation is therefore key to ending white supremacy. To do so, hooks believes that it is important to teach students about colonization, imperialism, and slavery, and she observes that transmitting this information requires that teachers reject white supremacy.

Next, hooks quotes Howard Thurman about loving Blackness, arguing that seeing Blackness as beautiful deconstructs white supremacist ideals of beauty. hooks describes the assimilation that occurred after the 1970s. In response to rising costs of living and other social changes, Black people began to change their hair and clothes to the styles preferred by white people. Radical white activists began to claim that racism was over and conversations about class were deemphasized. hooks raises a series of questions about the movement toward assimilation after this period of loving Blackness. For instance, she asks, “What does it mean when many black people say that what they like most about the Bill Cosby show is that there is little emphasis on blackness” (191). She observes that these kinds of questions lead to Black people feeling hopeless.

hooks next recalls racial desegregation in her high school and laments that activists have grown less militant since then. This is frustrating, she says, because it means that the ideals of the Black power movement have not been maintained and developed. Activists, therefore, still have to fight to love Blackness. hooks says that she is inspired to militantly rebel against white supremacy by rage, and gives the example of Audre Lorde’s essay “The Uses of Anger.” hooks shares that she has felt isolated in academia and notes how some of her white female colleagues say that they have encountered Black women who are unwilling to teach them, although hooks believes that some white women are not genuine in these requests.

hooks calls on Black women to create models for overcoming white supremacy, citing Frederick Douglass and Paulo Freire, who both discuss how education is mutually beneficial to the student and the teacher. hooks then discusses how Malcolm X encouraged Black people to give white people action items. She explores this idea, arguing that the system of white supremacy must be eradicated in white communities and large structural changes must be made.

hooks highlights the historical bonding between “Native and African Americans” (196). These marginalized groups came together to fight white supremacy. hooks claims that this history has been forgotten, however, due to the isolation of reservations. She advocates for rebuilding this coalition, as well as coalitions between other peoples of color, quoting Jimmie Durham on the solidarity between marginalized groups in the 1960s and 1970s. hooks asserts that the solidarity he discusses is ruptured when people participate in white supremacy. Then, hooks quotes Toni Morrison about how immigrants are taught to hate Black people in order to be accepted in the United States.

hooks continues, stating that white supremacist power encourages people of color to create hierarchies among themselves. This comes from the fear of being at the bottom. hooks argues that this power “is weakened when people of color bond across differences of culture, ethnicity, and race” (199). hooks gives the example of competing for the position of the model minority, or the best racially and ethnically underrepresented group in the eyes of white people. She observes that other racial and ethnic groups that are not Black will position themselves above Black people, and this disassociation from Black people is a form of racism.

hooks then condemns competition in the struggle against white supremacy, pointing out that some Black people have prejudices against non-Black people of color. These, as well as negative perceptions of Blackness, need to be overcome to dismantle systems of oppression. She critiques multiculturalism under capitalism, saying it leads to separatism. hooks next discusses how the white Christian right has used religion to uphold the correlation between whiteness and goodness. They use multiculturalism to attract diverse congregations but do not combat white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. The media likewise critiques Black religious groups, like the Nation of Islam, but doesn’t critique white Christian groups, though hooks notes that the Nation of Islam also has issues with hierarchies. All forms of religious fundamentalism, she says, are opposed to radical multiculturalism. hook concludes that there needs to be solidarity among people of color to resist white supremacy.

hooks shares that she realized she discussed antisemitism more while teaching abroad in Europe than she did in the US. She cites Lost Tribes and Promised Lands as a source that helped her understand the connections between anti-Black racism and antisemitism. Then, hooks describes a class discussion at Oberlin where Jewish students insisted that they “not be included in [the] category of whiteness” that Black students were critiquing (205). She points out that the light skin tones of these Jewish students give them access to white privilege. Quoting Yours in Struggle by Elly Bulkin, hooks declares that people who are not Jewish can internalize antisemitism and this includes Black people as well as non-Jewish white people. She states that everyone, therefore, has to work against antisemitic norms and stereotypes.

hooks recalls her religious education in an Appalachian Baptist church. The leaders there taught her “that anti-Semitism and anti-black racism were fundamentally connected” (206). Many Jewish people in her community were taught the same thing. However, Jewish high school students would gain social power from white people if they were racist against Black people. hooks didn’t encounter antisemitic Black people until she moved away from Appalachia to go to college, where she worked with and fostered solidarity with Jewish feminists.

Next, hooks discusses an article asserting that Black people are becoming more antisemitic while white people are becoming less antisemitic, arguing instead that both antisemitism and anti-Black racism are growing. While hooks acknowledges that antisemitism exists in Black communities, she believes the article is unnecessarily divisive and the two groups of marginalized people need to work together to overcome white supremacy.

hooks notes that there are dialogues among Black people that cast Jewish people as a “scapegoat” (210). hooks condemns the Black people who perpetuate antisemitic stereotypes, stating that they are not looking critically at the media they are consuming, and consequently, they echo its antisemitism. hooks cites religious fundamentalism, alongside mainstream news media, as ways antisemitism is transmitted. She adds that Black leaders who transmit antisemitism are likely to also transmit sexism.

hooks asserts that both Jewish and Black people need to be vigilant in overcoming what they have been taught by the system of white supremacy. She also asserts that there needs to be space to discuss difficult questions, such as Black people questioning Zionist actions against Palestine. She says that learning about the shared struggles between Jewish people and Black people will aid in overcoming white supremacy.

hooks describes her experience as a guest on a talk show, where the topic was relationships between white and Black women. People disagreed with her statements about the barriers to friendships across these groups. The taping ended abruptly after a member of the Nazi party was brought out. hooks criticizes how the other guests and audience couldn’t stay on topic and, more generally, how people don’t prioritize these kinds of friendships. She claims that these people are in denial about the lack of connection between Black and white women. In spite of this, hooks found common ground with white women in college-based feminist groups.

hooks notes that this bonding and discourse about women has lessened over time under the capitalist patriarchy. White women are less educated about the history of racism, especially subtler forms of racism, against Black women. White women have to unlearn stereotypes that depict Black women as servants of, and less desirable than, white women. hooks praises white feminists who interrogate “the ways they use white privilege” and understand the history of betrayals faced by Black women at the hands of white women (219). For instance, white activists place Black women “in the role of ‘mammy’” (220), which causes Black women to think white women can’t take care of themselves. hooks argues that both Black and white women need to understand this history in order to transcend it.

To create bonds between white and Black women, hooks claims that all women must stop competing with one another. Competition should be “replaced with a longing to know one another” (223). This bonding will disrupt the systems of oppression. hooks discusses the book Memoir of a Race Traitor, which is about the bonding between a white lesbian woman and a straight Black woman. hooks states that women need to decenter the opinions of men to overcome sexism, and that overcoming sexism is linked with overcoming racism.