Sofia Abbas

Happy Black History month!! 

This post is coming very late but, as I’ve been reeling from the ramifications of the past few weeks, I find myself turning to the strength and wisdom of figures like bell hooks for solace. As many of you might know, I’m currently a graduate student studying history in the U.S. Times like these are an ever present reminder not just of the importance of my discipline but also of the perseverance and enduring beauty of humankind. 

In honor of Black History Month specifically I’ve decided to post a series of artist spotlights highlighting diverse creators who have inspired me. To me, a critical aspect of months such as Black History Month is not just what we do during the month itself but also the ongoing, lasting changes we make that will continue for the rest of our lives. 

The quotes and artists I plan to share are all people who have had a profound impact on me not just as a historian but also simply as a woman of color navigating the kaleidoscope of this world. My hope is that the quotes I share will touch you, too, and remind all of us of the artistry that surrounds us. I’d love to hear any of your favorite quotes, art pieces, or lyrics from artists who are meaningful to you! 

There are many different types of writers and theorists out there, and many different black scholars and artists who have had a profound impact on my life that I wish to honor. For this first post I chose bell hooks simply because I’ve found myself thinking of her and her words a lot lately. Her writing is famously impactful and I’ve always found that I learn something new every time I return to her, but these past few weeks have been a strong reminder that the experience of interacting with art is defined by the viewer as much as the artist. There have always been a thousand lessons contained within each book or article bell hooks wrote, and yet the ones I picked up and internalized are a reflection of who I am and the context of my life in that moment. 

I read my first bell hooks piece, an excerpt from Ain’t I a Woman, a little over five years ago. It wasn’t very long ago, really, although it feels a small eternity away. The world felt different then, and I still don’t know if that difference was real or imagined. Maybe both, maybe neither. That first article was an assignment for class, and while it felt powerful at the time my interpretation was very one-dimensional. Her writing was straightforward and, despite being a woman of color myself, my understanding began and ended with the black and white words written on the page. 

It was only when I came back to Ain’t I a Woman at the end of the semester for a paper I was working on that I started to appreciate the depth of her writing and the straightforward beauty of her words. One role of theory is to provide a framework for future work and progress, but another equally important role is to put words to what is already felt and experienced. The writings of bell hooks filled a gap in scholarship but also bridged a gap between academia and the experienced lives of countless people outside academia. Between the professional ‘work’ of the academy and the realities of the world the academy is situated within. 

The ivory tower is ivory for a reason, and bell hooks throughout her life made a strong case for the importance of theory broader than immediate circumstance while simultaneously forcing scholars to engage with intersectionality on a deeply analytical level. Still, what strikes me today is the way the concept of love reverberates throughout bell hooks’ writings and life, both explicitly and implicitly. Love to her is about action, about value and sincerity that reaches so far beyond the concepts of family and romance we usually discuss it within. And if love is an action, then the action of loving is activism. 

Back in 2019, I saw progress all around me. Ironically, after centuries of systematically pushing a doctrine of white supremacy, that so-called ivory tower of academia was where I found the most concerted efforts to take the words of bell hooks and others to heart to effect meaningful, long-lasting change. Today, in 2025, that project seems stalled in place and sliding backwards every day. 

I still don’t know if that difference is real or imagined, if it’s just my view that’s constantly shifting or the world itself. What I do know, and what I’ll always believe, is that art is the essence of humanity. The diversity of every individual perspective does not lessen the equity of our experience, and the constant battery against the inclusion of artists and voices like bell hooks in our public life is a distinctly inhuman act. 

On paper, the events of today are not really all that shocking. They were clearly promised to us, and now those promises are coming true. The past has many lessons to teach us if we choose to hear them, and I don’t think one has to be a historian to see the parallels and trajectory of this current path the U.S. is on. 

Still, there’s a difference between theory and experience, and watching the career I’ve spent years working towards get ripped to shreds in less than a month rendered me speechless. Writing is the crux of my identity and yet in those frozen days I found myself with nothing to say. Now, though, I find myself rereading bell hooks and finding my words again. Just like her, I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance. 

Writing seems like so little sometimes, like an empty space in an unseen void, and yet it’s the writings of bell hooks that breathed my spirit back to life. And, funnily enough, in the book of hers I plan to read this week, she herself already put words to the way I feel right now.

“Even though writing is a solitary act, when I sit with words that I trust will be read by someone, I know that I can never be truly alone.” ―bell hooks, “women who write too much”