Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black

Author: bell hooks
Publisher: South End Press
Year: 1999
Pages: 186
ISBN: 978-0896083523

Writing is a healing act of power for this woman who grew up in an “old school” Southern black world where children were meant to be see and not heard. “Talking back” was punished with silence. But in the world of woman-talk, where the everyday rules of how to live and how to act were established, hooks made langauge her birthright. When it comes to bigotry, there is no mincing words: bell hooks talks back.

In Talking Back, this voice is as strong and uncompromising as ever but it is also much more personal. She writes about the meaning of feminist consciousness in daily life and about self-recovery, about overcoming white- and male-supremacy, and about intimate relationships, exploring the point where the public and private meet.

“Domination is not just a subject for discourse and books,” she concludes. “It is about pain. Even before the words, we remember the pain.