bell hooks and the possibilities of intervention and transformation

Founding Fathers

fund, found, foundation, fundament,
fundamental: L. fundus -- bottom.
I.E, bhudh: base, (butt—bottom line)

A House (divided) is
Not a Home

Domo (home) Oikos (house)
Domain Ecologic
Dominance Economics

Identifying ways we participate in the
perpetuation of white supremacy, of
racist domination, expands our potential
for intervention and transformation.
( bell hooks)

And “patriarchal” thinking, that too.

Of all the words that bell hook put into play
yesterday, I think “DOMINATION”
dominated, trumping:

“white supremacy, “
“racism,”
“feminism,”
“patriarchy,”
“homophobia/hetero-normalcy”
“class hierarchy “and
“ecological disaster”

--by far.

This makes sense.

All those terms represent the symptoms of the
DOMINANCE which dominates my habits,
habitats, hegemonic inhabitation: the patterns
that drive my homeland security systems and
my human nature.

Control. Order. Predictability, Regulation. .
In my terms-of-desire, of course so as
to make the world a better place. .

I was feeling both guilt and righteousness listening
to bell—acknowledging & identifying with my white
racist skin. my patriarchal privileged relatively upper
class ways on the one hand (situational position).

But on the other hand congratulating myself as stalwart
pioneer exploring unknown pedagogical frontiers:
relinquishing my classroom dominance best I can
inside an environment which perpetuates dominance
like anything.

(Trying to build an ice cream parlor in hell
while doing no injustice to either hot or cold. )

Given the DOMINANCE bell critiques as the dominant
environmentalism (my dominion- driven & domain protecting
human nature):how to build it’s diabolical antithetical
counter-balance without too much disturbing the
PEACE we all desire too, damnit; that's
something LIKE the challenge bell
presents to me.

That’s how I see it

IMAGINE, so as to expand my potential for intervention
and transformation: me being able to consider the
DOMINATION challenge (identifying my involvement
as perpetrator/victim) as really

interesting:

a problem in description (aesthetics, prior to ethics).

ME--able to suspend (at least in “school” mode) my moral
judgment (“Damned Moral Sense”as Twain calls it) long
enough to sidestep my righteous/defensive double-binding
ingrown strategic tactics tying me up in great Gordian
Naughts as usual or forget about it.

IT, I said.

My Dominance/Submission Addiction, whatever its race,
gender, class, situational embodiment & varieties of
regional & local manifestation makes no never minding,
damnit.. OMG: that would be awesome.