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What is the main issue in bell hooks' "Postmodern Blackness" and why does she mention essentialism?
Quick answer:
In "Postmodern Blackness," bell hooks addresses the lack of representation of black voices, particularly black female voices, within postmodern discourse. She argues that postmodernism's critique of essentialism—rejecting fixed identities—can benefit black scholars if applied thoughtfully. While postmodernism typically dismisses essentialist notions of identity, hooks sees potential in using its frameworks to engage with black experiences and as a tool for political change, encouraging collaboration with community artists and critics.
The main issue in this essay is expressed by bell hooks in the following quote:
The failure to recognize a critical black presence in the culture and in most scholarship and writing on postmodernism compels a black reader, particularly a black female reader, to interrogate her interest in a subject where those who discuss and write about it seem not to know black women exist or to even consider the possibility that we might be somewhere writing or saying something that should be listened to, or producing art that should be seen, heard, approached with intellectual seriousness.
In most scholarship on postmodernism, hooks sees very little representation of black voices, and almost no black female voices. Part of this is because of the systemic racism in the academy, which according to bell hooks is both a cause and an effect of the belief of African American scholars that there is...
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little in postmodernism that is relevant to the black experience.
The irony is that postmodernism is based in large part on the idea of specificity and diversity of experience, and hooks argues that black postmodernist writers have actually absorbed and accepted, and ratified through their works, the white supremacy that they have sought to challenge. But hooks claims that recent developments, especially deindustrialization, have created the possibility for empathy across identities. White working-class people are experiencing the same "hopelessness" as many black people.
But, the central concern of this essay is that black scholars should employ the critique of "essentialism" that is central to postmodernism without rejecting the idea of a black experience. Most important, black scholars (like hooks herself) should engage with people in the community, especially artists, whose work is also a form of criticism.
References
The main issue in this article is found in the title. Theorist bell hooks is trying to help readers understand the relationship between the cultural movement known as postmodernism and issues related to race in America, especially for Black Americans. Hooks mentions essentialism because that's one of the major areas postmodernism addresses, and one that may be useful for Black thinkers (and that they must address even if they disagree). Postmodernism rejects essentialism, seeing all claims to an essential identity as faulty. Instead, identity is constructed by culture. This includes the entire idea or category of race. Hooks sees postmodernism as a potential political tool.
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