Table of Contents
Introduction
In many of her writing works, Bell Hooks sought to address the issue of social class and the capitalist regime. In the book where we stand, Hooks tries to explore issues about class-consciousness. She went ahead to raise issues about national and personal responsibility. At one point, Hooks stated that standing with the poor in solidarity could help reestablish the failed state of affairs in the community and bring sanity. This paper looks at the arguments that hook brought forward regarding poor people and the reestablishment of the community.
Discussion
A community becomes complete when it ensures that all people live harmoniously whether they have affluence or suffer in poverty. A community comprises of people who belong tom different social classes. At no time can a community live with all people belonging to the same class. Communities comprise of rich people and poor people, just as it has educated people and uneducated people.
I agree with Hooks. Hooks writes that the only way to have a harmonious community involves making the rich and the poor work together. Hooks believed that the community had a responsibility to provide the poor with basic needs. Hooks wrote about the way her family and the community influenced her childhood. Her family and the church taught her values that enabled her understand different aspects of life, for instance, poverty and wealth and the way these two aspects affect life (Hooks 5).
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To her, the church provided significant guidance that helped her to combat greed and promote her identification with the poor. The community, her family and her Christian faith helped her develop a responsible sense towards money and the lives of all people in the community. Hook observes that the church and temple in the United States of America have failed to instill values to people in the community. She states that the community disintegrated because of lack of values and morals; thus, it made the rich fail to identify with the poor and attend to their needs. Hooks observes that the community neglected the poor because they lack money and have little influence in the community.
Bell Hooks and the poor people view the charitable women in Kendall's book and the COGIC women who became church leaders with suspicion because they represent the same church that failed to inculcate the values required to influence the way people interrelate and class form social classes. They pretend to serve the needs of the poor while they cannot. If they really wanted to help the poor, they would rally for equality in resource allocation, in the United States of American community. The charitable women come from the rich social class that does not heed to the interests and needs of the poor. The women church leaders serve to make the rich happy so that they can gain their favor. Therefore, hook and the poor should not trust these women (Kendall 171).
She observes that talking about money in the public domain acts as a taboo in a polite society. She states that the rich consider their class as significant in the community and have failed to count the poor as equal members of the community. The way the rich treat the poor in the society disintegrates the community and draws a line between the poor and the rich that develops a hate relationship between the rich and the poor.
The community should accept blame if it cannot make the rich and the poor live together harmoniously. The society does not nature the importance of essential values such as the importance of religious teachings. Therefore, the members of the community do not live up to the required standards because the community does not inculcate those values in them.
The community values the rich more than it values the poor. It considers the rich as more important than the poor. However, this should not happen because each member of the community has his or her importance and contribution to the society even if not monetary or the class that they belong. Therefore, in the case that the society fails to ensure that people live together harmoniously, it should take responsibility for issues that go on in society such as crimes. Hooks expresses this through her notion of 'being rich.' She says that her interview with the rich who form a small group in the community revealed that the rich consider their class, their richness and their influence in society as everything that the community might need.
The community has the responsibility of finding a way to harmonize the rich and the poor. The fact that the poor do not own wealth does not mean that they should have no consideration. In fact, the poor contribute much to the community more than they contribute the rich. The rich own the means but the poor, own the infrastructure of developing the community. Therefore, the two groups have stakes that they hold in the development of the community and harmony that should exist in the community (Brent 216).
Hook observes that the rich abuse wealth because they have excess money and have nothing constructive to do with the money that they have. She voices the under representation of the poor in the United States of America. The society can only rebuild itself if it ensures that the poor have a stake in the society. The community should not leave the poor to suffer with hunger and dilapidated places of living while it has the opportunity and ability to make the environment a better place for them to live.
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Conclusion
The poor cannot live with the rich harmoniously, when one group suffers and the other has resources in excess. The community has the responsibility of finding a leveled ground that should link the rich and the poor together. The only way to do this involves standing in solidarity with the poor.