What’s in a Name?

Her given name was Gloria Jean Watkins, born in Hopkinsville KY, just north of Nashville. After a substantive and transformational career she returned to Kentucky, ending her career at Berea College. By that time, everyone knew her by another name, the moniker she chose as an homage to her grandmother.

bell hooks. 

The loss, as Roxanne Gay wrote on Wednesday after hearing of hooks' death, is "incalculable." hooks was an insistent and powerful literary voice. A truth teller. Unafraid to pull back the curtain and reveal some of the most distasteful aspects of our contemporary culture.

She looked at her pain, at our collective pain, and refused to flinch. She dared us to do better, to be better. She dared us to fight.

"When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment." – bell hooks