Bell Hooks's Essay: The Power Of Silence

Silence, the empowering strength that shields us, protects us from pain and prevents trouble or the disturbing absence, omission of mention, comment, or expression. When there is silence nothing is heard, its empty, your shut out, unable to give voice, to talk back. Silence kills, it kills “the essence which holds and molds an individual together in order to form one complete organism” (Kao Thao 18). They say that silence is power and in away I guess that holds some truth but silence is also powerless, an ineffective censorship that keeps us from speaking out. Speech, true speaking is an authority that when spoken right is more powerful than silence, “not solely an expression of creative power; it is an act of resistance…a courageous act as such it represents a threat. To

Is your voice like that of bell hooks or like Mai Kao Thao? Explain your use of your voice in comparison with theirs? I would have to say that my voice is very similar to that of bell hooks. As a black woman myself I relate to bell hooks world of the black community, I too grew up where the phrases “back talk” and “talking back” had no room for a child in a world of black women, as a child I was often told and I quote to “stay in a child’s place” and if not I was rebuked, that reprimand being a slap to the mouth or spanking from mama. Just like bell hooks my home was were black women preached, my mother, grandmother (when she visited or I visited her), and my mothers friend talked about the rules of life, how to live and act. And whenever I tried to voice my two cents my voice was unheard or laughed at, asked to leave the room and stay were a child belongs. This did nothing but give me all more reasons to keep talking. I was so fascinated about what they talked about; life, the struggles they faced; Men and how ignorant they are to that of a woman life; Love and all its many hardships and joys, and all the neighborhood gossips. I was excluded from such