She liberated the theories of Marx, Foucault, Beauvoir, Fanon, Freire and so many others from the elevated halls of academia and disseminated them worldwide into a Black feminist vernacular. She was “ratchet” before the word “ratchet” was invented. She built on the conversations so many of her fellow Black sisters during that era were having on the intersections of race and gender-from Angela Davis to Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, June Jordan, Barbara Smith and the Combahee River Collective, Ntozake Shange, Kimberlé Crenshaw, to name a few-and wrote with such ease and familiarity, even with the flare of “street credibility” that disrupted the politics of respectability.

Her writing so prolific (over 30 solo-authored books), her theorizing so relatable.īell hooks gave us language that literally saved our lives by helping to articulate the oppressions we faced as women, as Black people. She had even garnered news features on our television news programs, from PBS Newshour to BBC News to NBC Nightly News and CBS Mornings. It was no surprise, then, that her name-or rather, her pen name (bell hooks is the name Gloria Jean Watkins adopted from her great-grandmother, deliberately spelled in lowercase letters to deemphasize her individuality) -trended on social media across the feminist, Black and social justice spectrums with news of her passing. As she reminded us in one of her many book titles, “Feminism is for everybody.” She’s the main reason why so many of us have collectively embraced a “Black feminist” identity compared to, say, a “womanist” one. Indeed, an entire generation of contemporary scholars, writers, activists and other creatives has the same story to tell. She was that influential, that pertinent to my development and identity as a Black feminist scholar. I had already heard that her health was failing, and yet, the announcement of the death of bell hooks (1952-2021) still felt like a gut punch. Her death is a reminder the work continues-to continue resisting systemic oppressions, to carve a path to liberation.īell hooks died on Wednesday, Dec.

Bell hooks saved our lives by helping to articulate the oppressions we faced as women, as Black people.

Bell hooks on theory