Critiquing bell hooks Postmodern Blackness: Does Black Literature need the critical apparatus of Black Postmodernism?

By Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT

           Looking through the lens of postmodernism as it pertains to color, race, class and more specifically, the African American, it becomes even more problematic to define the modern, postmodern and post-post modernism. Not because we cannot comprehend the  

Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT

meanings, but so few black intellectuals have been indoctrinated with postmodernism in a way that would lay bare to a very clear definitions, claims or arguments. In bell hooks’ “Postmodern Debates: Postmodern Blackness,” she is determined to cut relevance into her view of postmodernism at the sake of not stepping out and defining an apparatus of her own that can be used by black authors and society to make meaning for a ‘modern, post or post-post’ in ‘blackness.’ hooks writes, “I was told by another black person that I was wasting my time, that ‘this stuff does not relate in any why to what’s happening with black people.” (128).

          I tend to agree with the other black person on the critique of hooks amazement and have been unsettled by the lack of black literary agents who have not looked to solidify a meaning exclusively to black culture. If hooks and others would look at the examples of modernism to include the post and post-post in black culture there is an extensive prospect to break the mold set by the white-patriarchal construct as it pertains to having exclusivity in the hierarchy of literary devises. To define a change in literary meaning, you first need an example of devise you want to amend. For the simple sake of argument, the black culture could look at the sport of boxing. To look at the modern in boxing, one could argue that Mohammad Ali and Joe Frasier could fit perfectly in a literary definition. 

          From a postmodern definition, boxers like Sugar Ray Leonard, Wilfred Benítez, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Durán, and Marvin Hagler, called the boxers of the decade for the 1980s by Sports Illustrated fit fine. Nevertheless, when looking at post-post modernism in this example, stepping away from boxing’s golden age society has the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is the largest mixed martial art promotion company in the world featuring most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport. In addition, the World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE), which is an American publicly traded, privately controlled Entertainment Company that deals primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue streams from television and cable. 

          As a Black author, given the examples above, we could argue for a new literary device, or critical apparatus such as Current Relevatism – not to be confused with Cultural relativism, the idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another. The meaning of ‘Current Relevatism,’ is that during our arts, society and literary history (Black America), there were moments in the depths that are timely and relevant in our cannons that lay bare to likening of Marxism, capitalism, modernism, postmodernism and postmodernity that can only be defined by the current state relevant to the black literary cultures purchase. Hence, while hooks understands what could be labeled as modern, she negates the opportunity to insert a new critical apparatus like Current Relevatism to account for the white-patriarchal construct and what it has used to create meaning and identity for black bodies, literature and culture for far too long. “During the sixties, the Black Power Movement was influenced by perspectives that could easily be labeled modernist,” (129). 

If Black literary agents cannot idea, create and distribute new meaning in the areas of literatures critical apparatus to define and review for debate, we have not gotten any further as intellectuals then the common household cat. Black Postmodernism and the definitions, which have never been cleared or applied, are unnecessary? 

Works Cited: Malpas, Simon. "Postmodern Blackness | Bell Hooks." Postmodern Debates. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 128-135. Print.

Let the truth be told...we have a huge diversity challenge on every university campus

Some will not like this, but the truth will not change. 

Open letter to HU president Hanson and Dean of Students Sickbert, Kline: What about us?

Sometimes a concern written in the prose poem format can make your point!

Editors note: Talking about racial diversity is not enough. We need to experience it. A while back, I heard a university student compare campus life to “living in a bubble.” As part of their educational experiences, teachers need to nudge and even push students out of their cultural bubbles.  While college students might come from different cultural backgrounds, there is no guarantee that they will interact and learn from each other. Often, what we find on college campuses is what some term segregated pluralism, students keeping to themselves and interacting for the most part with their “own kind.” The college classroom and co-curricular activities can help break down these barriers, but college administrators need to focus more on activities, programs, and other initiatives to promote cross-cultural interaction. Furthermore, college presidents need to translate their personal commitment to diversity into organizational change.

By Don Allen, Senior Columnist – Hamline University Oracle student newspaper 2012-2015 (Editorial Opinion) 

Thanks for the cup any-who. 

St. Paul, Minn. - On Feb. 12 the HU senior team put together a top-notch event to celebrate the class of 2015 having less than 100 days before graduating. The event had great food, a cash bar, free champagne and a whole lot of words from the president and HU deans. While I sat with my back turned away from the podium and listened, I began to cringe from listening to the rhetoric likened to a high school pep fest.  The words spoken left out a very important part of the HU student body who did not live in the dorms or have a meal plan. Here today, I ask the question, “What about us?”

What about us? We are the students who transferred to Hamline University that did not take part in the first year student activities. We did not take the class of 2015 photo that appears on Facebook pages and sometimes on the HU website. We did not know about it; of course nobody followed up.

What about us? We figured out that Hamline’s Undergraduate Student Congress (HUSC) was nothing more than a laughable group who’s main concern is to manipulate imaginary power in the name of the HU administration while the student body gets absolutely nothing but empty promises and the students get nothing. We only do drama at home, not on campus.

What about us? We wanted to get involved on campus but were marginalized and dismissed while student leaders decided that students over a certain age were no a part of the HU participation base. We didn’t want to see a movie at the local theater that was meant for children (Big Hero 6).

What about us? We are the students who have children, families, and mortgage bills. We could not attend events made for students who live on campus that could skip right over to the Anderson Center after 5 pm. Where is the consideration for us?

What about us? The single mother’s, who worked jobs, paid for day care and went to school while the fathers of our children were far away. There was not a peep of gratitude for our struggles making it to the final year at HU. Yeah - really, what about us?

What about us? Students of color who wanted HU to take a position on race, gender and sexual orientation that sat by and watched HU go through the motions of boutique social engineering training the campus not to march, protest or voice concerns other than in a controlled environment.

What about us? Students who worked for the newspaper, radio station or had an opinion. Our voices where shut down; the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and expression was silenced by “suggestive overtures” from certain administrators.

What about us? We are veterans who served our country wounded with disabilities that sometimes cannot be seen from the outside who have to contend with a new HU veteran certifying official who will not update us on new benefits and will hardly look us in the eye and say hello when passing. What about the handful of soldiers who left HU because in reality the university is far from being veteran friendly and it is obvious that nobody really cares.

What about us? We have never seen so many university administrators out-of-touch with non-traditional student reality that could be needed for recruitment and retention. The world is changing and it is not what is sometimes represented at HU.

What about us? What happened to the words in celebration for the non-traditional students who did not miss a day of classes in more than three-years at HU despite sick children, schedules of our spouses and work? 

What about us? I know in the classroom HU professors take the time to use the knowledge and experience of the non-traditional student for the betterment of the whole class and learning experiences. This is where the rubber meets the road for HU’s high-impact learning. Unfortunately, HU administrators do not see (or it seems that way) the value of the class of students who will not fall into a fresh-out-of-high-school mentality when we know the real world does not operate on those terms.

In closing, to president Hanson and Dean of Students Sickbert, Kline – if you cannot see beyond the scripted words that only look to acknowledge one caste of HU students who made it to graduation, you miss the point of why HU is a great University. If you do not care, please disregard the above.

What about us? Do I need an apology letter...no, too many of those have been sent out.