Books like Where We Stand: Class Matters

bell hooks shares her upbringing and personal history with us in this book, and for that reason it is worth savoring. She has a very conversational style in this book; she is not writing a polemic. But she is teaching. This book reminds us that America does indeed have a class hierarchy, and indicates how that plays out for citizens. hooks reminds us that in a culture where money is the measure of value, it is believed that everything and everybody can be bought. But money is not the standard where other values are more important: “Solidarity with the poor is the only path that can lead out nation back to a vision of community that can effectively challenge and eliminate violence and exploitation.” Acquiring wealth or items of value make us fearful that someone will take those things away from us. hooks herself had such an experience, having bought a fancy car she found herself being less generous. A material object with which she identified altered her relationship to others. She caught this recognizable mindset exactly: human beings do this. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t admire or have lovely things. We just have to acknowledge they change us and our relationship with others, and find a way to compensate for this. Money or beautiful things is not the point, not the point of our existence. We have to look harder, deeper for that. This book was published in 2000, shortly after hooks’ prolific period studying, writing, speaking in the 1990s. The push for more—more money, more power—has always been with us but hadn’t infected the vast middle class, perhaps because it was unimaginable, until this period when unheard-of wealth was within reach for many in the middle class. hooks is just reminding us not to lose our sensibility to the false god, gold.Chapter Five, called “The Politics of Greed,” is just as relevant now as it was when written twenty years or so ago, perhaps more so. That’s the thing with bell hooks: she seems to have sprung full-grown from the head of Athena or whomever. She is grounded in a way we can dream of, finding her way to answers some of us will only discover in old age, if at all. She talks about addiction in a way that hurts, it seems so familiar to many now. “Those who suffer the weight of this greed-based predatory capitalism are the addicted. Robbed of the capacity to function as citizens of any community (unable to work, to commune with others, even to eat), they become the dehumanized victims of an ongoing protracted genocide. Unlike the drugs used in the past, like marijuana and heroin, drugs like cocaine and crack/cocaine disturbed the mental health of the addicted and created in them cravings so great that no moral or ethical logic could intervene to stop immoral behavior.” We recognize this language today, though the drug choice has changed to opioids.In her chapter entitled “Being Rich,” hooks explains that the poor and working class have been taught by mass media to think like and aspire to the values and attitudes of the rich ruling classes, ideologically joining with the rich to protect their class interests. We are all taught to believe that the wealthy have earned their right to rule because they are rich, without examination into the sources of that wealth and the exploitation it may represent, and we therefore often abandon any political commitment to economic justice.In the old days of an emerging Christian ethic, the disciples were puzzled to learn from Jesus that the rich must work harder for grace because they will be tempted to hoard their wealth and exploit others to increase their wealth. “Nowadays much new age spirituality attempts to undermine traditional biblical condemnation of the greedy rich by insisting that those who prosper are the chosen, the spiritual elect. But there is a great difference between celebrating prosperity and the pursuit of unlimited wealth.” In later chapters hooks addresses the new wealth of American blacks and how allegiance to the new class interests of successful black people may supersede their racial solidarity. We must be mindful that an exploitative rule set allowed certain talents to break barriers most cannot and this should not be taken as the kind of success any of us consider complete. In general and from the outside, it does not appear that successful blacks are ignoring their brethren, but I do not think the same can be said of white citizens. hooks actually addresses this in her chapter entitled “White Poverty: The Politics of Invisibility.” While the black poor were ostracized in the larger society, they managed to stick together, live together, worship together. In some ways, this was unavoidable where the society was segregated. But poor whites lived everywhere, and because of segregation, had no common cause with poor blacks, and were not accepted by wealthier whites. Doubly despised, we could say. It is not so far from that time to today, when poor whites embarrass their wealthier brethren. hooks is saying that we must bridge this divide and recognize the basic humanity we all share, across race, class, sexuality, and national origin. We have to surrender our attachment to material possessions, eliminate the false hierarchies based on wealth, color, sex, etc. and interact based on more lasting values. A final few chapters suggest ways for us to ease into new relationships with one another.hooks is indispensable as a thought leader.