Rating: Summary: Class matters... Review: A very exciting book that illustrates how class and race are intertwined in our society today. Hooks masters the art of linking a young black girls personal experiences to gender, race, and class. This is a very intersting book and I recommend buying a copy to read.
Rating: Summary: Hate or Pride Review: Bell Hooks brings literature an exciting aspect of writing in Where We Stand: Class Matters. She presents facts from her childhood and from the present about how her class has affected her life. As a young black girl growing up in a world that race did matter and did affect things like what kind of jobs you got; where you could live and even which water fountains you could drink from she realized the hardship this world would give her. She grew to be strong torwards her pride and was respected for not backing down in tight situations. The thing this book makes you question however is, whether she is doing this to gain respect or merely now it is out of hate from the past. It is a great book to seek perspective from as a culturally non hand fed black american in a world of questioning and money thriving sensations.
Rating: Summary: Class does matter Review: bell hooks did a wonderful job on this book. I strongly believe that the world today is seperated by classes and people are judged by what social class they fall under. bell hooks talks about how women are treated differently by how they dress and where they go to school. She brings up topics that society does not want to deal with. She did a wonderful job analyzing and describing the way things have changed and stayed the same since she was a child. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in the way society is run today.
Rating: Summary: or 4.95 . . . Review: bell hooks is ahead of the curve again. Class studies seems sure to supersede race and gender studies as the next big thing in academia (and thus, eventually, more widely--at least I hope so). Hooks writes wonderfully here and elsewhere about issues that most academics write about in prose that is certainly more difficult than necessary. As before, at least for me, she's at her best here when she writes about the details of her own life, her own growing class awareness. In doing so, she manages to show just how much American consciousness has changed regarding the poor and the rich, and especially, how individuals decide where they "stand" in relation to the two. Getting rich has become the highest goal in America, even more so than it ever was, and the poor are more disregarded and even despised than ever. hooks reminds us (and, hopefully, the newly triumphant Christian right) that the Bible, and much traditional Christian teaching, holds the poor up, rather than the rich, as examples of how we all should live. A shift in perspective has gradually crept upon us--while Americans used to cite many features that constituted a "good life," loads of money has come to the fore as the defining tool toward living "well," and for many it seems to be the only thing that would make life better. hooks writes "movingly" (a cliche, but it's true) of how all these changes FEEL; she clarifies for me, for instance, the way the widening availability of gambling is making more and more of us dissatisfied with our current lives because they seem to pale so in comparison to the lives we "could" lead if we could just buy that right lottery ticket. I could write much more encouraging you to read this book, but I'll end by applauding how fully hooks shows that class AND race AND gender continue to be factors that must be considered together if we are to make any progress toward narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor. Assuming we see such a gap, and even want to narrow it. With the increasingly meaner winds blowing, issues of class will probably get brushed aside even more roughly by the American fantasy of class mobility for ANYone willing and able to work for it--thank you, bell hooks, for standing up and talking back to that wind.
Rating: Summary: What I think Review: Bell Hooks uses many experiences in her life to explain her issues with class and race. Her writing style is repetitive at times but I think that it is nessecairy for the point to get across. After all, issues with class and race is a repeating probelm through out her life and our lives. Bell Hooks style of writing helps prove her point even more. I give her four stars for her content, style of writing and interesting stories.
Rating: Summary: Where We Stand Review: Bell Hooks Where We Stand: Class Matters, I like the book because she talks about how her life was as a child then transitions into her college experiences with class, coming from a poor family. He book constantly remind you how hard life can be coming from a poor working class family. This is a good book I enjoyed it because she just her life story the way tha it was good and bad.
Rating: Summary: What I think Review: Class does matter in the world whether we like to admitt it or not. Bell Hooks uses a variety of examples in her life to prove this point. Yes, she does use repetitive examples but there are repetitive issues dealing with race and class going on in the world right now. Thus, it helps prove the point even more.Many people like to state that class does not matter but deep down inside it matters. Hooks' novel is actually very real and it is hard for many people to admit that it is. I think she deserves four stars.
Rating: Summary: What I think Review: Class does matter in the world whether we like to admitt it or not. Bell Hooks uses a variety of examples in her life to prove this point. Yes, she does use repetitive examples but there are repetitive issues dealing with race and class going on in the world right now. Thus, it helps prove the point even more.Many people like to state that class does not matter but deep down inside it matters. Hooks' novel is actually very real and it is hard for many people to admit that it is. I think she deserves four stars.
Rating: Summary: Incredible work that says what really needs to be said! Review: I began reading this book because it struck me in the book store. I still strikes me, strikes deep in my heart as an upper-middle class white woman. I have a 'socialism of the heart' as Billy Bragg would say, and thus reading this book at 16 (it was published in 2000) has served as a powerful reinforcement of my already honest outlook. For anyone who needs a wake up call, or simply a look into reality (a refreshing look it would be to see reality, yet the mass media has done their money's worth of covering reality up with fluff, scruff, and "buy, spend, watch, obey, buy, spend, watch, obey")...this book is something that will not so easily be forgotten.
Rating: Summary: the parts that I read Review: I didn't have the chance to read the entire book, but the chapters that I did read were interesting. I like it when she talks about the real realities of life, the ones that people know exist, but fail to acknowledge that they are present. I had to do a project in my English 1102 class and my group did chapter 12, "Class Claims: Real Estate Racesim". We found out that the problem in that neighborhood was that the 'whites' were afraid to live around so many 'blacks' because they feared that by doing so would mean that they are less of a person. If they did decide to move in, the cost of living in that particular neighborhood went up. The main idea that I got out of that chapter was when Hooks said, when whites look at my skin class status wears thin.
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