I am fearful. I have fear.

(preface: this is an essay I wrote for my communities in literature class on an essay entitled "practical wisdom" by bell hooks. The assignment is to use the essay as a way to launch discussion. I am holding my discussion this Thursday, so I have not yet turned this paper in. Any comments/feedback/suggestions would be greatly appreciated)

In Teach 16 of her book Teaching Community: a Pedagogy of Hope, bell hooks describes an experience she had at Southwestern University. She had been hired to teach informal classes on race, gender, class, and religion in the predominately white male university. The classes were very successful the dean invited her to give the commencement speech. While the classes had been a positive experience, the speech was not. Hooks spoke to “thousands of white people, many of whom anti-black racist.” The audience didn’t like the government-sanctioned violence, oppression, and student passivity she discussed. Their reactions were harsh and hooks was booed and threatened for her speech.

There is a story to be gained from every experience, and the audiences’ reaction to hook’s commencement speech opens the ground for a powerful discussion about fear. During the speech, there were two types of fear at play. The first was the fear hooks felt when she stood before the white audience and the second the fear the audience had toward hearing a black woman speak about oppression. Many people—students, teachers, professors, staff—have experiences with both types of fear. We are afraid of being discriminated against and/or have prejudices, biases, and intolerance toward others. However, instead of dealing with these fears, we are taught to ignore the first and be ashamed of the second. Fear is controlling and when left untouched and unmentioned, it only grows. The experience hooks gives in her essay provides an opportunity for discussion. In a community, classroom, family, and group of friends we need dialogues about fears we feel, fears we have, and how we can “move through that fear to find out what connects us.” Instead of being a negative emotion we deny, fear can be a communal process of healing “that brings us closer.”

The process of working through fear is laid out in a quote hooks includes from an essay written by Parker Palmer. Palmer writes, “I am fearful. I have fear. But I don’t need to be my fear as I speak to you. I can approach you from a different place in me—a place of hope, a place of fellow feeling, of journeying together in a mystery that I know we share.”

In the first line of the quote, Parker point to the fear we feel. ‘I am fearful’ relates to the specific events, people, places, or things we perceive as being emotionally, spiritually, or physically dangerous. We must first acknowledge what frightens us as we work through fears. In the example I gave above, hooks was fearful of the audience at the commencement speech. She “feels afraid” of their reactions and potential consequences her speech could cause.

In acknowledge what scares us, we can begin to see the fears we have. The fears we have are different than the ones we feel in that they relate more to our prejudices, biases, and intolerances. They are not physically, emotionally, or spirituality dangerous, but are perceived as threats to our lifestyles and habits. The audience members of hook’s commencement speech had fear at her discussing the government oppression, violence, and student apathy. They were not afraid of what she talked about, but of her as a black woman urging people to change. Her ideas were radical and, if followed, would require shifts in mindset, beliefs, values, and lifestyle. The audience members didn’t want this type of change.

It is important to talk about these fears we have, though they are probably the most difficult to discuss. It is hard to understand, but we all carry some amount of intolerance, bias, and prejudice. Hooks feels some disdain toward white men and for many years, I looked down upon feminists. I fed into the feminist stereotype of bitchy angry women independent of men, and justified my beliefs by observing members of Texas Tech’s Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (though I had never met these women or gone to any of their meetings). Looking back, I can see that my viewpoints were misogynic. Though they have changed, I still feel ashamed to talk about them. Once aware of these fears we have it is difficult to openly discuss our own racism, misogyny, and homophobia in a classroom, community, family, or with friends. We are often ashamed of these fears and feel as if others would judge us for them.
The ‘I am fearful’ and ‘I have fear’ experiences we have should not be kept untold because we are afraid of other people’s reactions. The shame we feel in being afraid to give a commencement speech about oppression or carrying unfounded disdain of feminist classmates does not have to define or control us. Parker wrote “I don’t need to be my fear as I speak to you. I can approach you from a different place in me—a place of hope, a place of fellow feeling, of journeying together in a mystery that I know we share.” When hooks took the podium, looked out over the white audience, and decided to give her speech, she does not let her fear define who she is. She approaches the audience from that different place inside of her—one of “shared humor, deep thinking…and meaningful community.” Though the audience’s initial reactions were negative and hurtful, some students “were moved by [her] words” and she considers the experience a success.

In our classrooms, community, families, and friends, we tell our stories and feelings of fear to “journey together in a mystery we share.” By sharing our stories, we find that others have similar experiences. And with their experiences comes a wealth of knowledge, advice, and understanding. When I was questioning feminism, I found solace in others who had similar doubts. Together we talked about the stereotypes of feminism and what led us to resent and distance ourselves from a movement that we could have found solidarity in. After months of discussion and dialogue, we went to a Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance meeting. The twenty women were nothing like we expected. We participated in their production of the Vagina Monologues and working with them dispelled any stereotypes we had. After the production ended we joined the twenty women in calling ourselves feminists. When left unacknowledged, fear divides. When told, worked through, and shared, fear gives the foundation for a “meaningful community.”