Bell Hooks We Wear The Mask Analysis

Morris 1 Bell Hooks is a renowned African-American feminist and author. In her book, Salvation, she tries to expose and critically examine problems for blacks...dealing with the intra-social fibers within their community. Amongst all of her clearly thought out books, four of her most critical thoughts are presented in Salvation. Her thoughts are entwined within four chapters: “The Heart of the Matter”, “We Wear the Mask”, “The Issue of Self-Love”, and “Valuing Ourselves Rightly”. All four of these chapters encompass her message that black love is malnourished in some way, shape or form. Overall, she seems to present good concepts, but she makes very basic mistakes that destroy her path to her conclusion and its validity. In her chapter,
“The Heart of the Matter”, Bell Hooks presents a relatively sound conclusion(s): "The transformative power of love is the foundation of all meaningful social change" and "Love is profoundly political". However, she faulted on one of her premises in supporting her conclusion(s). Bell Hooks asserts a supporting premise that evokes a flaw in Martin Luther King Jr.'s Civil Rights strategy.
Much of King's focus on love as the fundamental principle that should guide the freedom struggle was directed toward upholding his belief in nonviolence. While he admonished black people again and again to recognize the importance of loving our enemies, of not hating white people, he did not give as much attention to the issue of self-love and communal love among black people;...(Pg.7)
Bell Hooks states that love was the fundamental guide for Martin Luther King Jr. but ignores the very reason as to why love for him is the fundamental guide. Bell Hooks simply makes a claim as she asserts that Martin Luther King Jr. preached about the importance of loving our enemies, she neglects to present the other half. The other half involves the foundation to Martin Luther King's thought process on everything, how he interacts with the world; this half is his Christianity. Since Martin Luther King Jr. is a pious man, he adheres to his religious code of conduct, -Jesus' summary of the Ten Commandments when the Pharisees tried to trick him by asking, should the Jews pay taxes to Caesar?

Morris 2
Within the summary by Jesus of the Ten Commandments there is a commandment that resembles Bell Hooks' claim "love your enemy". The Jesus summary of the Ten Commandment version says "loving your neighbor as yourself, loving God above all, and loving your enemies, praying for them and blessing them". Finally, the premise that Bell Hooks initially asserted is inadequate. She is looking at the commandment incorrectly; she doesn't view it holistically. Essentially, Martin Luther King Jr. did speak on loving white people, to love them as you love yourself. This would then refute the claim that Bell Hooks presents, thus destroying her path to her conclusion. In her Chapter, “We Wear the Mask”, Bell Hooks puts forth her conclusion, “We use the satisfaction of material longing to deny the need to love and be loved”.
Yet again, however, she misses the other half. The other half here are the many hundreds of thousands of African American’s that need the high emphasis on materialism, being that the materialistic mentality was an essential part of adaptation for survival in capitalist America. Bell Hooks suggests assumingly that all blacks needed to not long for materialism in place of love. Moreover, some African Americans already have a sound foundation in the love that she is preaching. What she misses by looking at the African American situation monolithically is that not all African Americans were deficient in love nor replacing it with materialism. She creates the same mistake that some white people have been doing to black people and that is seeing the black race and their problematic situation as monolithic. Bell Hooks thinks that this moving away from materialism and towards more emotional development will fix all of the problems. However, not all African Americans are in the same situation or the same state of mind. She ignores the fact that African Americans have the ability to create an equilibrium between materialism and emotional foundation built on love. Furthermore, she blatantly overlooks the economic environment. This follows basic Darwinism, when you are in an environment that is different to what an organism is
used to it must adapt so that it can comfortably survive. America is a capitalist economy and that means there is around-the-clock emphasis on materialism. So, in order for black people to be able to compete they must keep the emphasis on materialism at the same level that it is at in order to survive
Morris 3 but to also add the value of love if it is not already there. If love does already exist, then suggest a more specific solution and not just view the entire black population as being monolithic. Finally, Bell Hooks’ conclusion asserting that the emphasis for materialism is filling the void for love in black people’s lives is underdeveloped. In the chapter “The Issue Of Self-Love” Bell Hooks evokes a conclusion that tacks onto the visualization of Blackness in the media and how that impacts black people and their own self visualization through imagination.
What black characters do best on the television and movie screens is slaughter one another. Blackness represents violence and hate. If love is not present in our imaginations, it will not be there in our lives;... (Pg.53)
According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, “imagination is the ability to imagine things that are not real.
It is the ability to form a picture in your mind of something that you have not seen or experienced; the ability to think of new things”. With this being said, Bell Hooks again makes a small mistake that disrupts her path to her conclusion. Bell Hooks assumes that the media and imagination are directly interconnected in the sense that black people can't imagine anything other than what the media conveys (what black people see); or that the imagination acts in favor of the media directly. Where she is wrong is that the imagination, by definition, generates images and concepts that one has not seen so since black people habitually see black people as evil and corrupt then they should by definition be able to imagine black people as tranquil, successful, loving, and
united. In Bell Hooks chapter, “Valuing Ourselves Rightly”, she has developed a serious conclusion, but again she just doesn't go far enough in fleshing it out. Bell Hooks’ conclusion thus follows:
Love is especially available to us because it is a non-market value. We can create love wherever we are. Valuing ourselves rightly means we understand love to be

Morris 4 the only foundation of being that will sustain us in both times of lack and times of plenty;... (Pg.70)
Bell Hooks speaks on black people creating love but she doesn't go far enough in telling how this love is created nor does she tell where this love is created (what/where is the source). Now connecting back to her reference to Martin Luther King Jr. and his Christianity; the answer to how the love she is talking about is created and where it comes from is answered, God and his agape love (selfless love). Bell Hooks must not know that man’s love is insufficient, it is often times rooted by and connected to corruption; but when God’s spirit comes within a person it transforms that once insufficient love into everlasting, overarching compassion. Essentially, Bell Hooks’ center of focus is off, she promotes self-love but instead should be promoting self-immersion within God. A better connection with God, the losing of the self in God is the answer, not the creation of your own love so that you can have self-love. God is all one will ever need in a time of nothing or abundance, as God goes beyond any human capabilities. In conclusion, Bell Hooks puts forth four thought provoking conclusions but they are underdeveloped. She is able to exert her full feminist stance while equally declaring her struggle as an African American in racial America. However, even though her conclusions help capsulize and publicly deliver a lot of unspoken issues in black America, she doesn’t put enough emphasis onto the little things, leaving her with underdeveloped thought paths; like the saying goes, it is the little things that matter, the little things help create the bigger picture.