Prompt #1

Bell hooks writes about authors based on their work and not about their race or sexual orientation. She states that it doesn't matter where you come from or what sexual orientation you are because people should focus more on how influential their writing is. I agree with what she Hooks has to say because I never really put much attention to the authors when reading books throughout school. I feel like some people won't read a book or article based on their race. That's unfair because people haven't even given it a chance to read and could end up really relating to it. Hooks is aware that there are "rarely those who want to insist that it is only great literature that matters willing to acknowledge that in a culture defined and organized around principles of race, gender, and class domination, identity matters simply because structures that silence and shut out are already in place to assault the consciousness of anyone who dares to live by the belief that we are always more than labels"(13). It's important but it's not important. What I mean by this is that professionals will continue to be opinionated and usually will not accept upcoming writers based on their background. It shouldn't be important because writers should be judged by their work.

Another reason why race and gender shouldn't be important is because it isn't their full identity. Just because you are a certain race doesn't mean you are part of the stereotypes. Many writers have gone through meaningful experiences that would change the way they write and change their point of view.   Hooks mentions and author, Jean Toomer, who "had tried to escape the burden of racial identity by passing. Ironically, this choice blocked and deadens his creative imagination"(13).