Killing Rage: Ending Racism

hooks quotes Paul Fussell, who describes the kind of person she wanted to be. This person, X person, is “a sort of unmonied aristocracy” (173). hooks clarifies her aspirations, which are not to become rich, but to be outside of class. She connects materialism with colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. Many Black academics share upper-class values with white people, Blackness having been marketed as lower class. hooks recalls a time at a conference when she tried to discuss how authors like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker changed their writing after rising in class. Associating the upper class with whiteness, other women misunderstood hooks to be saying that these authors were less Black.

hooks next advocates for communalism and ending class elitism. She quotes Fred Lee Hord about his Black students being subjected to colonialism and emulating it in order to succeed financially. hooks adds that Black people who want to be successful in capitalism consider it the same as self-determination. These people, says hooks, do not agree with socialism, or the redistribution of wealth, and while they can discuss the hopelessness of poverty, they cannot discuss the hopelessness that upper-class Black people face. hooks cites her personal experiences with Black academics who are unwilling to discuss class, suggesting that she talks about class because she isn’t financially successful, or that she is successful and therefore is out of touch with the lower class.