ENG121 Week 1 – Discussion- Response to Reading: Place

The essay I selected is ‘Free Spirits: A legacy of Wildness’.  The author of the essay, Bell Hooks starts by introducing us to the setting of the story. The story is set in Kentucky hills which is an area that is away from civilization. The author describes life in Kentucky as being full of freedom even though the people who live in the backwoods are considered as being wild. The author also provides a description of the life of people in the Kentucky hills. In the essay, the author says that the people in Kentucky lived according to Appalachian values. However, the people in Kentucky consider themselves as Appalachians and they did not divide Kentucky into East and West. The author also provides a description of the origin of the values of the people in Kentucky. Hooks (2008) says, “As there were individual black folks who explored the regions of this nation before slavery, the first black Appalachians being fully engaged with the Cherokee, the lives of most early black Kentuckians were shaped by a mixture of free sensibility and slave mentality” (p.38)Lastly, the author is proud of claiming a sense of solidarity and belonging which were part of the Appalachian values (Bell Hooks, 2008). The parts of the SQ3R process helped me are reading, reciting and reviewing.  I read through the article while highlighting the parts that look important. I then silently recited to myself what I had read. Finally, I reviewed the most important information by going back and looking over what I had highlighted.

In the essay, it is clear that people who live from away from cities enjoy a lot of freedom. This is shown by the way the author runs with her brother as though no gender separates them. The author also states that the folks in Kentucky wanted to live free even when circumstances forced them out of the country into the city. Moreover, the people in Kentucky enjoy the freedom of fishing, hunting, raising chickens and planting. This kind of freedom has also been enjoyed by most people. This kind of freedom that is enjoyed by the people of Kentucky is rarely enjoyed by the people in the United States. The government is always coming up with regulations that limit the freedom of the people. For example, in the case of an outbreak of an infection such as COVID-19, the government devises regulations that limit the movement of the people. There are also cases where people seek freedom on their own. For instance, I have seen three of my workmates migrating to rural areas after their retirement. They say that moving to a rural area after retirement makes one to enjoy the peace of rural areas. It is purported that rural areas are not as noisy as cities.

Based on the reading, I can predict that it will be very difficult end racism in the world. Racism is something that started several decades ago and it has been there ever since. In the essay, racist domination and white supremacy made life very difficult for the black people. The black people were forced to purchase lands from the whites that they had worked for as slaves for several years. Moreover, the Hooks (2008) states, “…even if one lived in the hills where the close neighbors were white and hillbilly, black people did not see themselves as united with these folk” (p.38). From these words of the author, it can be predicted that a black man will never be equal to a white man since a white man will always look to be superior. Therefore, the whites will always look down upon the black people. The slave mentality was vital in shaping the lives of most early black Kentuckians. This implies that even though slavery ended, the people of Kentucky still had the slave mentality. Therefore, with this slave mentality in the people, the black people would not mind to be slaves to the white people. This might make racism never to end in the world.

References

Bell Hooks. (2008). Free Spirits: A Legacy of Wildness. Appalachian Heritage, 36(3), 37–39. https://doi.org/10.1353/aph.0.0087