Hooks Paper

The book Where We Stand by bell hooks discusses the importance of class has on one's place in society. Further, by examining how class has directly impacted her life from adolescence up into adulthood, she was able to assess the importance of class as it affected her and others around her. As a child, hooks was raised to believe that race was an important factor that would affect her ability to succeed and grow within a society. Additionally, through her religious teachings, she was taught to believe that, rather than feel sympathy for the poor, she should instead look up to the poor and see them as our leaders. However. being a child of the Civil Rights movement, race was a pivotal issue that was a concern for both Black and White Americans. As a result, class was often ignored although it often had a larger influence than race.

In hooks's college years, she was met with the unpleasant reality of what classism was; moreover, she came to realize that her working class background would affect her college experience in ways that aggressively transcend the boundaries of race. Hooks discusses several incidents where her class background was often misunderstood and, in turn, ridiculed. As a result, her class often alienated her from her affluent classmates and at times made her feel shame for her family's economic background. As she furthered her education, she began to embrace her economic upbringing and re-examine the importance of class and how other people who are from lower and working classes -regardless of race -cope with how their economic positions affect thier quality of life and their views of themselves.

Hooks believed that as a result of classism, individuals of all races have had to overcompensate for their financial shortcomings by excelling in areas which produced both material and non-material wealth. Although one may be classified as being working or lower class, they could always use their ownership of items intended for those of higher economic classes to deceive others of their true class status. Furthermore, obtaining these upper-class possessions can allow one to feel a decreased amount of class shame.

Yet while individuals - especially African Americans - tried to soothe their economic woes by indulging in items to appease their wilted self-esteem, poorer whites loathed African Americans. Regardless of a black man or woman's economic status, poor whites saw their racial dominance as a way to continue their oppression of African Americans. Although whites were rejected by their own race, they still had the power of their skin color to degrade blacks and make them inferior regardless of their skin tone.

Furthermore, hooks realized that money could never determine an individual's character or their dignity. She went on to appreciate her upbringing and the lessons she learned from it. Despite the negative experiences she encountered as a result of it, she found a way to transcend the boundaries she would come to face and accept herself and others around her regardless of their status or position in society.

Where We Stand discusses the issues that a society is presented with when one of the determinants of one's status and quality of life is his/her economic status. Throughout hooks's childhood, she was taught to have solidarity for the poor and to learn from the experiences of the poor as a means to improve one's own character and appreciation of life. However, having grown up in a capitalist society where the emphasis is less community-centered and almost entirely self-centered, the poor have been left feeling class shame and - instead of being looked as leaders to help all people - have been looked at as individuals in need of charity who lack the defining characteristics that the higher class supposedly hold. Furthermore, by looking at how society's view of the poor along with how the poor view themselves within the context of sociological theory, one can further understand how society has created their views of the poor and, in turn, point the blame. By examing the role of Functionalism, Conflict Theory, & Symbolic Interactionism, one can get a better understanding of the poor and their roles in society.

Functionalism believes that the values that are instilled in us as children determine our roles in society. Furthermore, these roles that are prescribed to us are intended to help the greater cause of society. Per this theory, our society is made up of several interdependent functions that come together for the greater good of the rest of the society. However, it can be determined, per hooks, that for those who grow up in working or lower class households, these roles are less defined and, as a result have little function within society. The functions they do have, however, are intended to keep them in their current economic status and to assist those who are in higher classes in maintaining their status as well. In the chapter "Coming to Class Consciousness", hooks describes how, in her college years she began to realize that her education was not meant to uphold the beliefs and values of the working class; in fact, most conversations regarding the lower and working class were quite negative and left these individuals with little regard.

Through her college experience, she would come to see that at "the various colleges [I] attended [the classroom] was the place where social order was kept in place. Throughout my gradaute student years, I was told again and again that I lackd the proper decorum of a graduate student...Slowly I began to understand fully that there was no place in academe for folks from working class backgrounds who did not wish to leave their past behind...Poor students would be woelcome at the best institutions of higher learning only if they were willing to surrender memory" (36). Hooks's college experience exemplified the much larger picture society saw for those who were poor: in order to have a higher function within society, in exchange, one must leave behind their previously lower-held status. This degradation of the lower class usually led to class shame, where individuals would chose to stray from their family's economic background in order to bring increased self-esteem to oneself. By choosing to remain poor, one would never be regarded with esteem within their community, and would inevitably feel shame and pity as a result of their lack of success. The only way to have true function within society would be to abandon the poor and become one with the upper class.

Additionally, the self-esteem of the poor would cause those in lower classes to view certain objects as symbols of wealth and higher esteem both among themselves and those within their communities. If one could find the means to obtain these symbols, one could reduce their class shame and feel in someway connected with the upper class. In Symbolic Interactionism, it is believed that people respond to others by the way they perceive and interpret another person's actions. Moreover, if a person sees an individual who has wealth and material objects verifying this wealth, one will interpret that this person has high esteem amongst the community and is wealthy in various aspects in one's life. However, while the means by which a person obtained this wealth is unknown, an individual who seeks to obtain this level of social and economic capital will go to great lengths to ensure that they attempt to reach this level of social and economic solidarity.

Hooks discusses how - especially in the African American community - obtaining high levels of social and economic stature is incredibly difficult. However, unfortunately, some of the people who do surpass both the racial and economic boundaries in order to achieve success tend to look down upon blacks who have no obtained the same level of success as themselves. She states, "fewer black people know intimately the contrete everyday ways class power and priledge mediate this pain [racism], allowing some black folks to live luxuriously despite racism. Sadly, to escape this pain or to shield themselves from the genocide that is assaulting black masses, they surrender all transformative forms of racial solidarity in anti-racist strugle to protect thier class interests" (98). For the African Americans who have reached high levels of class, they tend to forget about the racial implications they once faced and many of their counterparts still face daily. As a result, those who still must deal with the racial inequalities that are still present in society will continue to interpret those who have as better than those who don't and, consequently, strive to achieve these statuses as a means for a high-ascribed status and high class esteem.

Where We Stand takes a scathing looking at the elephant in the room that has long been ignored: One's class can greatly affect one's quality of life as well as the opportunities an individual will be afforded in life. As individuals continue to strive for higher class status as well as a more effective means of achieving this status, those who "have" continue to be held to high esteem within society, while those who are of lower and working classes will most likely spend their lives striving to achieve higher social clout as well as high personal esteem. While lower class individuals are sometimes deemed with as offering little function to society, these individuals will turn to experiences with those with wealth to determine what they must do in order to achieve this level of societal esteem. However, per hooks, money is not the determining factor of one's wealth. Without dignity and character, a person is without any wealth because these characteristics cannot be purchased or bartered - they are instilled and practiced without a mere mention of what is in one's wallet.