Hillmer’s Art of Persuasion

Reading Response to Hooks and Gates

In Bell Hooks work, the term "talking back" means someone, specifically a black women, stating her opinion and actually using her voice to be heard. According to Hooks, not only did most women stay submissive and keep their thoughts repressed. In the rare case that women dod speak up, they often didn't actually say anything with substance or with the intent of being heard. This oppression of the black women by not only whites, but by black men as well, was why Hooks made it her personal fight to speak her mind and demand that her ideas be heard.

In Henry Louis Gates memoir, I would argue that the whole piece is written with the intent of "talking back" or speaking out against certain aspects of his black community in Piedmont. Gates voices his opinion on elements of his childhood town, such as the violence and sexist treatment of women, that challenges the segregated black and white communities of Piedmont. Many of the black individuals (specifically males) took out their anger at the whites that belittled and oppressed them on other memebers of their African American community.