A hand with brown skin pulls a book entitled "belonging" from a book shelf

GET WOKE! Reading Group – Belonging: A Culture of Place
Wed, Jan 25, 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
MEETING

Get Woke! Catskills is hosting a 3-part discussion of Belonging: A Culture of Place by bell hooks. The first meet-up will take place on Wednesday, January 25 from 6-7:30 pm at Bushel. Light refreshments will be served. Registration is not required but is recommended.

Please consider purchasing your book at one of our local independent bookstores. A few favorites include The Green Toad in Oneonta, the Lost Bookshop in Delhi, and Blenheim Hill Books in Hobart.

ABOUT THE BOOK. What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong?

These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic bell hooks examines in Belonging: A Culture of Place. Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which hooks moves from place to place, from country to city and back again, only to end where she began–her old Kentucky home.

hooks has written provocatively about race, gender, and class; and in this book she turns her attention to focus on issues of land and land ownership. Reflecting on the fact that 90% of all black people lived in the agrarian South before mass migration to northern cities in the early 1900s, she writes about black farmers, about black folks who have been committed both in the past and in the present to local food production, to being organic, and to finding solace in nature. Naturally, it would be impossible to contemplate these issues without thinking about the politics of race and class. Reflecting on the racism that continues to find expression in the world of real estate, she writes about segregation in housing and economic racialized zoning. In these critical essays, hooks finds surprising connections that link of the environment and sustainability to the politics of race and class that reach far beyond Kentucky.

With characteristic insight and honesty, Belonging offers a remarkable vision of a world where all people–wherever they may call home–can live fully and well, where everyone can belong.