Author hooks implores students to spread love
By: Melissa Ostrow
For: The Diamondback
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College students "have to do their part to spread love as a revolutionary force, not as a sentimental force" was one message author bell hooks gave Friday night at Vertigo Books in the College Park Shopping Center.
Hooks, a black feminist writer, read passages concerning all forms of love from her three-book series, All About Love: New Visions, Salvation: Black People and Love, and Communion: The Female Search for Love.
Hooks, who spells her name in all lowercase letters, said her latest book, Communion, focuses on what women have discovered mid-life about love, and what they hope to share with younger women to help them avoid the same heartache and abuse.
Hooks' novels have been controversial because of their racial, sexual and social themes.
However, she believes her books are special not because of their controversial nature but because "they attempt to bring together all these kinds of discourse ... on love. [It is] a feminism of race, class and gender of sexual practice."
In her first book, hooks did not mention her black heritage so she could take a broader stance on the subjects of love and community. Her next two novels narrowed the idea of love by looking at race and gender themes. hooks said she believes people only listen to blacks when discussing racial. By not mentioning her race in the first book, she could show "[blacks] are not one dimensional, that it is not an 'either-or' world, that we can be both."
For hooks, love is an important part of all communities.
"[Love] allows us to establish communities where no one is excluded or discriminated against. It enables us to value one another rightly, to appreciate our preferences and let love guide us to the place where we are made one body in love," hooks read from her book All About Love: New Visions.
Hooks stressed people need to work to unlearn white supremacy and racism to make communities work.
"My hope for interracial bonds, whether they are friendship or romantic bonds, is that we are doing our work together," hooks said.
However, she also said before people can work on loving others, they need to struggle with their own self-love. For hooks, self-love is "our hope and our salvation." Daniel Schnyder, an American studies graduate student, said he liked how hooks "promoted strong self-esteem," something he thinks is missing from Western society.
Senior women's studies major Katie Taylor called hooks "inspirational."
Vertigo Books specializes in books on race, activism and feminism, which is why hooks is popular with the store's clientele, said employee Scott Hengst.
Hengst said the crowd of people of different ages and races was "definitely one of the bigger draws." People sat on the floor and stood between rows of books during hooks' speech.
After she discussed her trilogy, hooks answered questions and spoke about images of women in the media, the biases of standardized testing, the anti-feminist backlash, the importance of public schools and the importance of children.
