Member-only story
Ode to bell hooks
sista bell hooks,
to you,
we owe
an enormous debt
that can never really
be repaid
in full.
You fed our minds,
gave us concepts
like Black Feminism
to chew on, masticate, then
swallow like a snake consuming
the whole body of its prey.
We ingested your words,
your radical Black feminist way of being & writing,
your defiance in the small letters of your name & body.
We watched the world choosing to ignore you
until the strength & sharpness in the sword
of your ideas & words
could no longer be ignored — as you cut through
the bullshit shields of white privilege, white hegemony, internalized racism, sexism, to challenge all.
You wrote/spoke /for/to/the folk
long before “public intellectual”
was a thing.
Small of stature, for sure,
but like Sista Harriet T,
