bell hooks
(Picture: Getty Images)bell hooks—poet, author, feminist, and professor—has passed at the age of 69.
The death of the writer, née Gloria Jean Watkins, was announced by her niece Ebony Motley on Twitter:
“The family of @bellhooks is sad to announce the passing of our sister, aunt, great aunt and great great aunt.”
The family of @bellhooks is sad to announce the passing of our sister, aunt, great aunt and great great aunt. The author, professor, critic and feminist made her transition early this am from her home, surrounded by family and friends. 🖤
— Enter Ebony (@Enter_Ebony) December 15, 2021
Her attached statement read: “The family of Gloria Jean Watkins is deeply saddened at the passing of our beloved sister on December 15, 2021. The family honored her request to transition at home with family and friends by her side.”
Motley also noted the story behind bell hooks’ lower-case pen name, saying it was in honor of their great-grandmother.
hooks had previously said that it signifies that what is most important to focus upon is her works, not her personal qualities.
hooks passed away in her home after an "extended illness," according to Berea College, the university at which she taught.
One of bell hooks’ first major works Ain’t I a Woman? was published back in 1981, and since then many have held her work closely and attributed her advocacy on themes such as love, race, feminism, and gender as life-changing.
As the world mourns her loss, we’re reminded of one of bell hooks’ many moving quotes: “to be loving is to be open to grief. to be touched by sorrow, even sorrow that is unending. we need not contain grief when we use it as a means to intensify our love for the dead and dying, for those who remain alive.”
bell hooks’ impact on the world is undeniable and her legacy will live on in her passing.
Online, many grieved the world’s tragic loss by sharing how and what the author’s advocacy and work taught them.
As a first generation college student, bell hooks was the first writer I encountered via academia whose work I was able to enthusiastically discuss with friends and fam *outside* academia. My mom and I read bell hooks together. I’ll always cherish the way her work bridged shores.
— Saeed Jones (@theferocity) December 15, 2021
I’m sure there will be a lot of bell hooks remembrances, but what I appreciated about her, in a time when feminism was increasingly abstruse and academic, was the clarity and openness of her prose, and her faith that these complicated ideas were for everybody who needed them.
— Jude "Maw #4 Out Dec. 22” Doyle (@sadydoyle) December 15, 2021
bell hooks has passed away. so much of what has shaped my worldview is due to her - from her defining work on oppositional gazes, to her treatises on love, to what it means to be queer, helping me put words to something I had known and lived for such a long time. rest in power. pic.twitter.com/BXvWTY4lzv
— kikei (@kikei) December 15, 2021
rest in power bell hooks. your honesty was a brave act of love. thank you.
— MUNA (@whereisMUNA) December 15, 2021
If you’re a Black woman who centers Black women in your work then you were influenced by bell hooks in some capacity—whether you realize it or not.
— Shanita Hubbard (@msshanitarenee) December 15, 2021
💔
bell hooks wrote directly for and to Black women, and it is a beautiful thing that everyone can learn from her, but her soul-filled love for us was so apparent in her work
— Bolu Babalola (@BeeBabs) December 15, 2021
As I reflect on bell’s passing I also fondly remember the tumblr Saved by the bell hooks. It used the culmination of humor and nostalgia to make bell hooks words accessible to everyone. A core beliefs of bell’s. We cannot be radicalized if we don’t have equity in education pic.twitter.com/Y9A0nkz45u
— bianca xunise (@biancaxunise) December 15, 2021
The passing of bell hooks hurts, deeply. At the same time, as a human being I feel so grateful she gave humanity so many gifts. AIN’T I A WOMAN: BLACK WOMEN AND FEMINISM is one of her many classics. And ALL ABOUT LOVE changed me. Thank you, bell hooks. Rest in our love. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/lXnAlaZpng
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) December 15, 2021
bell hooks taught me. She gave us the language, the courage, the example to speak our blackness in the world intra-mural and against white patriarchal heterosexist capitalism. bell taught us without fear. RIP bell hooks.
— BDF (Black diaspora faggotry) (@blacklikewho) December 15, 2021
bell hooks really made me believe that to love and centre love is a radical praxis and we will never see freedom without it. she sharpened my critical lens and without her i would not be the writer i am today, what a loss! my heart feels so heavy
— ? (@artfulhussey) December 15, 2021
bell hooks said “To be loving is to be open to grief, to be touched by sorrow, even sorrow that is unending.”
— 5hahem (@shaTIRED) December 15, 2021
we carry people on with us. we carry their legacies and teachings with us, with every step we take and every act of love we enact on ourselves and others. even in grief.
The courage that bell hooks gave me is something i do not have language to describe. A mother indeed.
— Breya (@TheBlackLayers) December 15, 2021
bell hooks was an extraordinary writer, thinker, and scholar who gave us new language with which to make sense of the world around us. Her work was imbued with a deep commitment to truth-telling, but also with a profound sense of care and love for community. She was a treasure.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) December 15, 2021
I owe bell hooks more than I could ever give. She helped shape/articulate my politics more than any other scholar. She awakened worlds in me I did not know existed.
— CiCi Adams🌸 (@CiCiAdams_) December 15, 2021
Her writing & scholarship broke ground on so many levels & remains radical, relevant, necessary work. RIP bell❤️ pic.twitter.com/BZo4LOr8dO
bell hooks’ writing shaped so much of my relationship with myself, my identity, and my worth in my younger days and continues to now…how fortunate the world was to have had her in it 💜
— taylor garron (@taylorgarron) December 15, 2021
bell hooks’ death is especially piercing because her philosophy encouraged a younger version of myself to dream.
— dr. edna bonhomme, mph (@jacobinoire) December 15, 2021
hooks wrote: “To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.”
"Love is profoundly political. Our deepest revolution will come when we understand this truth."
— G. L. DiVittorio (@gldivittorio) December 15, 2021
bell hooks’ writing not only taught me how to navigate love and tenderness for myself and others, but that there is power within both of those. We lost a revolutionary today. pic.twitter.com/ct5vNwcyyH
“If any female [woman] feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.” — bell hooks
— Mississippian (@RFlowersRivera) December 9, 2021
i don't know anyone who read the work of bell hooks and wasn't profoundly moved and changed by her writing and ideas. what an incredible legacy. what a staggering loss. https://t.co/fkw4nXiJub
— Gillian B. White (@gillianbwhite) December 15, 2021
bell hooks (along with Toni Morrison) shaped so much of my politics about how media [propaganda] influences the masses. Devastating. RIP.
— Clarkisha (@IWriteAllDay_) December 15, 2021
“Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power - not because they don't see it, but because they see it and they don't want it to exist.” - bell hooks
— Hannah Drake (@HannahDrake628) December 15, 2021
Finally get your rest, bell hooks. 💔
If you're just learning about bell hooks, there's no shame. You can always read her words and meet her on the page.
— Raquel Willis (@RaquelWillis_) December 15, 2021
bell hooks' body of work taught me that i can just write if I want to. she didn't care about pleasing academia, she cared about her work being accessible and about thinking through all sides of an issue. she taught me that thinking is never in vain, and that writing is an action.
— pfizer papi (@NicoleFroio) December 15, 2021
It is because of bell hooks that i learned theory can be a place of deep transformation and healing. Your memory lives on forever. You taught us well.
— Breya (@TheBlackLayers) December 15, 2021
Rip Gloria Jean Watkins. pic.twitter.com/H6z3aUTRqy
I am heartbroken. bell hooks' words helped to make me the writer i am, taught me me that there is no shame in centering love and tenderness, in approaching and embracing it. with ferocity.she is an everlasting force and blessing may she rest in perfect peace
— Bolu Babalola (@BeeBabs) December 15, 2021
It is essential to our struggle for self-determination that we speak of love. For love is the necessary foundation enabling us to survive the wars, the hardships, the sickness, and the dying with our spirits intact. It is love that allows us to survive whole.
— claire schwartz (@23cschwartz) December 15, 2021
—bell hooks
bell hooks is to my mind the mother of much of the current black feminist theory we see today online and beyond. She is endlessly complex and her work is vast in scope. She is simply everything. pic.twitter.com/U9DIiv0b6H
— M Lamar (@M_Lamar) December 14, 2021
An author. A professor. An intersectional feminist. An activist. An icon. Rest in power, Bell Hooks. pic.twitter.com/pffZuwn58b
— LEX (@iamlexstylz) December 15, 2021
it is not hyperbole to say bell hooks saved me and so many of the women i've been blessed to move through this life alongside. what an incalculable loss, my goodness
— Hannah Giorgis | ሐና ጊዮርጊስ (@hannahgiorgis) December 15, 2021
bell hooks’ definition of feminism is the only one I’ve used for 10 years because it’s the best and the clearest.
— Sarah Leonard (@sarahrlnrd) December 15, 2021
Feminism isn’t an identity and it’s not whatever you want it to be. It’s the struggle to end sexist oppression, and anyone can do it. pic.twitter.com/C0gJz21Yqq
