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Is There a Place to Escape from Race?
People talk crazy. I didn’t need a book for that fact. But Brittney Cooper, a Black Feminist scholar, tickled me with her definition of “talking crazy” in her book Eloquent Rage.
In her essay about being a Black Feminist “Capital B, Capital F,” Brittney Cooper describes her first, in-person introduction to the feminist scholar and cultural critic bell hooks.
Bell hooks came to her college to give a talk. And before the talk started, Cooper’s friend told her bell hooks “talks crazy.”
Cooper elaborates on “talking crazy" by saying that description can be an indictment or a compliment. Cooper defines talking crazy as, “moments of flirtation with ideas that skirted the line between being profound and being absolutely nonsensical.”
I appreciate that definition. When I read the essay “Writing Beyond Race” by bell hooks, I spotted some crazy words. I struggled to find the profound sanity in a few lines.
“Home is the only place where there is no race.” — bell hooks
I adore bell hooks, but her line about her home being the only place where there is “no race” made little sense.
